THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



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THE 

TRANSFIGURED 

CHURCH 



BY 



J. H. JOWETT, D.D 




New York 



Chicago 



Toronto 



Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



>3^ 

Copyright, igio, by 



FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 






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CI.A273'^61 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE MINISTEY OF A TEANSFIGUEED 

CHUECH . . . . . 7 

II. THE WOI^DEES OF EEDEMPTIOISr . . 33 

II. THE LOVE OF GOD .... 47 
lY. THE MAGNETISM OF THE UPLIFTED 

LOED ..... 57 

V. SON AND heie! .... 67 

VI. HIS MANY CEOWNS . ... 80 
VII. THE HALLOWING OF THE OUTEE 

COUETS . . . . .89 

VIII. WHAT IS SIN ? .... 99 

IX. A EEGAL CONSCIOUSNESS . . . 110 

X. LULLED BY HIGH IDEALS . . . 119 

XI. THE DOOM OF NINEVEH . . . 128 

XII. SOUND IN PATIENCE . . . 138 

XIII. THE SECEET OF MOEAL PEOGEESS . 148 

! . 158 



XIV. THY STEENGTh! MY STEENGTH 



6 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER P1.QB 

XV. BOLDNESS ....... 169 

XVI. MEN OF VIOLENCE . • . , 181 

XVII. PLOUGH-WOKK .... 191 

XVIII. THE ENERGY OF FAITH • . . 204 

XIX. THE TESTIMONY OF THE CONSCIENCE . 213 

XX. THE ART OF GIVING . . . 224 

XXI. WANTED, A VERDICT ! . . . 235 

XXII. THE OLD ROAD AGAIN . . . 244 



THE MINISTRY OF A TRANSFIGURED 

CHURCH 

" And when the day of Pentecost was come, they were all 
together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven 
a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all 
the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto 
them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire: and it sat upon 
each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy 
Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit 
gave them utterance. . . . And when this sound was heard, 
the multitude came together! " — Acts ii. 1-4, 6. 

The wonder inside the Church aroused inquisitive 
interest without. There came to the Church an 
exceptional and plentiful endowment, and, as by the 
constraint of a mystic gravitation, the outside crowd 
began to move, like the waters swayed by the moon. 
The crowd may have moved towards the Church in 
the temper of a flippant curiosity, or in the spirit of 
unfriendly revolt, or in the solemn mood of appro- 
priating awe. Whatever may have been the con- 
straint, the waters were no longer stagnant, the 
masses were no longer heedless and apathetic; the 
heedlessness was broken up, interest was begotten, 
and ^' the multitude came together." 

Is the modern Church the centre of similar in- 
terest and wonder ? Is there any awed and mesmeric 
rumour breathing through the streets, stirring the 

7 



8 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

indifferent heart into eager questionings? The 
modern Church claims immediate kinship and direct 
and vital lineage with that primitive fellowship in 
the upper room. Does she manifest the power of 
the early Church? Does she reveal the same mag- 
netic influence and constraint? 

I know that '^ the Kingdom of God cometh not 
with observation." And so it is with the Spring. 
The Spring ^' cometh not with observation/' but you 
speedily have tokens that she is here. She can hide 
her coming behind March squalls, and she can step 
upon our shores in the rough attire of a blustering 
and tempestuous day; but even though her coming 
may be without observation, her presence cannot be 
hid. And even so it is with the Kingdom : she may 
make no noisy and ostentatious display of her com- 
ing, but the sleeping seeds feel her approach, and the 
valley of bones experiences an awaking thrill, and 
'^ there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." I 
think, therefore, that we are justified in seriously 
inquiring as to the '' resurrection power " of our 
Churches, the measure of their quickening influence, 
their net result in reaching and stirring and conse- 
crating the energies of a community. How do they 
stand in the judgment? Is the Pentecostal morning 
repeated, and is the gracious miracle the talk of the 
town ? Does the multitude come together, '^ greatly 
wondering " ? 

Carry the inquisition to the regular and frequent 
fellowship of the Church. So many times a week her 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 9 

members gather together in the upper room. What 
happens in the hallowed shrine? Are we held in 
solemn and enriching amazement at the awful 
doings ? And when we come forth again, is there 
about us a mysterious impressiveness which arrests 
the multitude, and which sends abroad a spirit of 
questioning like a healthy contagion? Can we hon- 
estly say that by our ordinary services the feet of the 
heedless crowd are stayed, and that the people come 
together '^ greatly wondering " ? In answer to all 
these searching questions I think that even the most 
optimistic of us will feel obliged to confess that the 
general tendency is undisturbed, that we do not 
generate force enough to stop the drift, and that the 
surrounding multitude remains uninfluenced. 

Now, when we consider these unattracted or 
alienated peoples, we can roughly divide them into 
three primary classes. First, there are those who 
never think about us at all. So very remote are the 
highways of their thought and life that the impulse 
of the Church is spent before it reaches their mental 
and moral abode. We can scarcely describe their 
attitude as one of indifference, because the mood of 
indifference would imply a negligent sense of our 
existence, and I can discern no signs of such percep- 
tion. We contribute no thread to the warp and 
woof of their daily life. We bring no nutriment to 
the common meal ; we do not even provide a con- 
diment for the feast. Our presence in the city 
brings neither pleasure nor pang, neither sweet nor 



10 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

bitter, neither irritation nor ease; their souls are 
not disquieted within them, neither are they lulled 
into a deeper and more perilous sleep. We are 
neither irritants nor sedatives; to this particular 
class we simply do not exist. 

And, then, secondly, there are those who have 
thought about us, and as a result of their thinking 
have determined to ignore us. For all simple, posi- 
tive, and progressive purposes we are no longer any 
good. We are exhausted batteries; we have no 
longer the power to ring a loud alarm, or to light a 
new road, or to energise some heavy and burden- 
some crusade. Our once stern and sacrificial war- 
fare has now become a bloodless and self-indulgent 
quest. It is not only that the once potent shell- 
cases have been emptied of their explosive content, 
they have been converted into dinner-gongs! The 
once brilliant and unconditional ethical ideal has 
been dimmed and shadowed by worldly compromise. 
The pure and oxygenated flame of righteous passion 
has been changed into the fierce but smoky bonfire 
of sectarian zeal. We are looked upon as engaged 
in petty and childish controversy, losing ourselves 
in vague and nebulous phraseology, decking our- 
selves in vestures and postures as harmless and 
indifferent as the dresses worn at a fancy ball. 
That is the estimate formed of us by a vast section 
of the thinking crowd. You will find it reflected week 
by week in the labour papers, where we are regarded 
as straws in some side-bay of a mighty river, riding 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 11 

serenely round and round and round, and we do 
not even show the drift of the stream, the dominant 
movement of our age. Our speech and our doings 
are of interest to the antiquary, but for all serious, 
practical, forceful, and aspiring life our Churches 
do not count. 

And, thirdly, there are those who think about us, 
and who are constrained by their thinking into the 
fiercest and most determined opposition. To these 
men the Church is not like Bunvan's Giant Pope, 
alive but impotent, and " by reason of age, and also 
of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his 
younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, 
that he can do little more than sit in his cave's 
mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and 
biting his nails because he cannot come at them.'' 
No, to this class the Church can do more than 
grin; it can reach and tear, and its ministry is still 
destructive. Its influence is perverse and pervert- 
ing. Its very faith is a minister of mental and 
moral paralysis. Its dominant conceptions befog 
the common atmosphere, and chill and freeze " the 
genial currents of the soul." Its common postures 
and practices, its defences and aggressions, perpetu- 
ate and confirm human alienations and divisions. 
The Church cannot be ignored; it is not a harmless 
and picturesque ruin ; it is a foul fungus souring the 
common soil, and for the sake of all sweet and beauti- 
ful things its nefarious influence must be destroyed. 

This is by no means an exhaustive analysis of the 



12 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

alienated multitude, but it is sufficiently descriptive 
for my present purpose. In each of these three 
great primary classes the people stand aloof, in- 
different and resentful, and the Church is not en- 
dowed with that subduing and triumphant impres- 
siveness which would turn their reverent feet to- 
ward herself. Now, how stands it with the Church ? 
Does she seem fitted to strike, and arrest, and silence, 
and allure the careless or suspicious multitudes? 
What is there imique and amazing about her ? Her 
Lord has promised her a marvellous distinctiveness. 
She is to be '' a glorious Church, not having spot, 
or wrinkle, or any such thing 'M ^^ A glorious 
Church '^ : shining amid all the surrounding twi- 
lights with the radiance of a splendid noon ! " Not 
having spot " : no defect, no blemish, no impaired 
function, no diseased limb ! '^ Or wrinkle " : there 
shall be no sign of age about her, or any waste ; she 
shall never become an anachronism; she shall al- 
ways be as young as the present age, ever distin- 
guished by her youthful brow, and by her fresh and 
almost boisterous optimism ! '' Or wrinkle, or any 
such thing '' ! Mark the final, holy swagger of it, 
as though by a contemptuous wave of the hand the 
Apostle indicates the entire rout of the unclean 
pests that invade and attack an apostate Church. 
*' Or any such thing '' ! Are these great words of 
promise in any high degree descriptive of our own 
Church ? Is this our distinctiveness ? " Not hav- 
ing spot " : have we no withered hands, no halt, no 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 13 

blind, no lame, no lepers ? ^^ Or wrinkle '' : are we 
really distinguished by the invincible and con- 
tagious energies of perpetual youth? Does not the 
holding up of this great ideal throw our basal de- 
fects into dark and ugly relief? The pity of it all 
is just this, that the Church, with all its loud and 
exuberant professions, is exceedingly like ^^ the 
world." There is no clean, clear line of separa- 
tion. In place of the promised glories we have a 
tolerable and unexciting dimness; in place of super- 
lative whiteness we have an uninteresting gray; and 
in place of the spirit of an aggressive youthfulness 
we have a loitering and time-serving expediency. 
There would be no diflSculty, if only we had seized 
upon the fulness of our resources, and had become 
clothed with the riches of our promised inheritance, 
in men being able to distinguish, in any general 
company, the representatives of the Church of the 
living God. There would be about them the per- 
vasive joy of spiritual emancipation, resting upon 
all their speech and doings like sunlight on the hills. 
There would be about them a spiritual spring and 
buoyancy which would enable them to move amid 
besetting obstacles with the nimbleness of a hart. 
^^ Thou hast made my feet like hinds' feet ! " " By 
my God have I leaped over a wall ! " There would 
be about them the fine serenity which is born of a 
mighty alliance. And there would be the strong, 
healthy pulse of a holy and hallowing purpose, beat- 
ing in constant and forceful persistence. Such 



14 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

characteristics would distinguisli any man, and any 
company, and any Church, and the startled multitude 
would gather around in questioning curiosity. But 
the alluring wonder is largely absent from our 
Church. Men pass from the world into our pre- 
cincts as insensible of any difference as though they 
had passed from one side of the street to the other, 
and not feeling as though they had been transported 
from the hard, sterile glare of the city thoroughfare 
into the fascinating beauties of a Devonshire lane. 
What, then, do we need ? We need the return of the 
wonder, the arresting marvel of a transformed 
Church, the phenomenon of a miraculous life. I 
speak not now of the wonders of spasmodic re- 
vivals; and, indeed, if I must be perfectly frank, 
my confidence in the efficient ministry of these 
elaborately engineered revivals has greatly waned. I 
will content myself with the expression of this most 
sober judgment, that the alienated and careless mul- 
titude is not impressed by the machinery and prod- 
ucts of our modern revivals. The ordinary mission 
does not, and cannot, reach the stage at which this 
particular type of impressiveness becomes operative. 
The impressiveness does not attach to " decisions," 
but to resultant life. The wonder of the world is 
not excited by the phenomena of the penitent bench, 
but by what happens at the ordinary working-bench 
in the subsequent days. The world is not impressed 
by the calendar statement that at a precise par- 
ticular moment Winter relinquished her sovereignty 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 15 

to Spring ; the real interest is awakened by the irre- 
sistible tokens of the transition in garden, hedgerow, 
and field. It is not the new birth which initially 
arrests the world, but the new and glorified life. It 
is not, therefore, by spasmodic revivals, however 
grace-blessed they may be, that we shall excite the 
wonder of the multitude, but by the abiding miracle 
of a God-filled and glorious Church. What we need, 
above all things, is the continuous marvel of an 
elevated Church, '^ set on high " by the King, having 
her home " in the heavenly places in Christ,'' ap- 
proaching all things " from above," and trium- 
phantly resisting the subtle gravitation of '' the world, 
the flesh, and the devil.'' It is not only multitudes 
of decisions that we want, but pre-eminently the 
heightening of the life of the saved, the glorification 
of the saints. The great Evangelical Revival began, 
not with the reclamation of the depraved, but with 
the enrichment of the redeemed. It was the members 
of the Holy Club, moving amid the solemnities of 
grace and sacred fellowship, who were lifted up into 
the superlative stages of the spiritual life, and who 
in that transition took a step as great and vital as 
the earlier step from sin to righteousness. Their 
life became a high and permanent miracle, and their 
subsequent ministry was miraculous. That is the 
most urgent necessity of our day, a Church of 
the superlative order, immeasurably heightened and 
enriched — a Church with wings as well as feet, her 
dimness changed into radiance, her stammering 



16 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

changed into boldness, and presenting to the world 
the spectacle of a permanent marvel, which will 
fascinate and allure the inquiring multitude, drawn 
together " not that they might see Jesus only, but 
Lazarus also whom He has raised from the dead." 

Now, what is the explanation of the comparative 
poverty and impotence of our corporate life? Why 
is the Church not ladened with the impressive 
dignities of her destined inheritage? Look at the 
manner of our fellowship. Is it such as to give 
promise of power and wealth? When we meet 
together, in worshipping communities, do we look 
like men and women who are preparing to move 
amid the amazing and enriching sanctities of the 
Almighty? Take our very mode of entry. It is 
possible to lose a thing by the way we approach it. 
I have seen a body of flippant tourists on the Eigi at 
the dawn, and by their noisy irreverence they missed 
the very glory they had come to see. '' When ye 
come to appear before Me, who hath required this at 
your hands, to trample My courts?'' That loud and 
irreverent tramp is far too obtrusive in our com- 
munion. We are not sufiiciently possessed by that 
spirit of reverence which is the " open sesame '' into 
the realms of light and grace. We are not subdued 
into the receptiveness of awe. Nay, it is frequently 
asserted that in our day awe is an undesirable tem- 
per, a relic of an obsolete stage, a remnant of pagan 
darkness, a fearful bird of a past night, altogether a 
belated anachronism in the full, sweet light of the 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH IT 

evangel of grace. I remember receiving a firm, but 
very courteous remonstrance from one of the children 
of light, because on the very threshold of a lovely 
summer's morning I had announced the hynm : — 

"Lo! Grod is here: let us adore 
And own how dreadful is this place." 

And my friend said it was like going back to the 
cold, gray dawn, when disturbed spirits were speed- 
ing to their rest! It was like moving amid the 
shadows and spectres of Genesis, and he wanted to lie 
and bask in the calm, sunny noon of the Gospel by 
John! I think his letter was representative of a 
common and familiar mood of our time. I have no 
desire to return to the chill, uncertain hours of the 
early morning, but I am concerned that we should 
learn and acquire the only receptive attitude in the 
presence of our glorious noon. It is certain that 
many of the popular hymns of our day are very far 
removed from the hymn to which I have just re- 
ferred. It is not that these hymns are essentially 
false, but that they are so one-sided as to throw the 
truth into disproportion, and so they impair and 
impoverish our spiritual life. Here is one of the 
more popular hymns of our time: — 

" O that will be glory for me. 
When by His grace I shall look on Hia face. 
That will be glory for me ! " 

Well, we all want to share in the inspiration of the 
great expectancy ! It is a light and lilting song, with 
very nimble feet : but lest our thought should fashion 



18 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

itself after the style of these tripping strains, we 
need to hear behind the lilt " the voice of the great 
Eternal/' sobering our very exuberance into deep 
and awful joy. " When by His grace I shall look 
on His face ! " That is one aspect of the great out- 
look, and only one, and therefore incomplete. I find 
the complementary aspect in these familiar words, 
^' With twain he covered his face ! " That is quite 
another outlook, and it introduces the deepening 
ministry of awe, which I am afraid is so foreign to 
the modern mind. '' I feel like singing all the 
day! " So runs another of our popular hymns. 
That would have been a congenial song for my friend 
on that radiant summer morning when his thought- 
less minister led him up to the awful splendours of 
the great white throne ! ^^ I feel like singing all the 
day " : and the words suggest that this ought to be 
the normal mood for all pilgrims on the heavenly 
way. I am not so sure about that, and I certainly 
have grave doubts as to whether the man who feels 
^' like singing all the day " will make the best soldier 
when it comes to " marching as to war." " The Lord 
is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence 
before Him." That is a contemplation which seeks 
expression in something deeper than song. '' There 
was silence in heaven about the space of half an 
hour." What had they seen, what had they heard, 
what further visions of glory had been unveiled, that 
speech and song were hushed, and the soul sought 
fitting refuge in an awe-inspired silence? 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 19 

When I listen to our loud and irreverent tramp, 
when I listen to so many of our awe-less hymns and 
prayers, I cannot but ask whether we have lost those 
elements from our contemplation which are fitted to 
subdue the soul into silence, and to deprive it of the 
clumsy expedient of speech. We leave our places of 
worship, and no deep and inexpressible wonder sits 
upon our faces. We can sing these lilting melodies, 
and when we go out into the streets our faces are one 
with the faces of those who have left the theatres and 
the music-halls. There is nothing about us to sug- 
gest that we have been looking at anything stupend- 
ous and overwhelming. Far back in my boyhood I 
remember an old saint telling me that after some 
services he liked to make his way home alone, by 
quiet by-ways, so that the hush of the Almighty 
might remain on his awed and prostrate soul. That 
is the element we are losing, and its loss is one of 
the measures of our poverty, and the primary secret 
of our inefficient life and service. And what is the 
explanation of the loss ? Pre-eminently our im- 
poverished conception of God. The popular God is } 
not great, and will not create a great race. The 
Church must not expect to strike humanity with 
startling and persistent impact if she carries in her 
own mind and heart the enfeebling image of a mean 
Divinity. Men who are possessed by a powerful 
God can never themselves be impotent. But have 
we not robbed the Almighty of much of His awful 
glory, and to that extent are we not ourselves de- 



20 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

spoiled ? We have contemplated the beauties of the 
rainbow, but we have overlooked the dim severities 
of the throne. We have toyed with the light, but 
we have forgotten the lightning. We have rejoiced 
in the Fatherhood of our God, but too frequently 
the Fatherhood we have proclaimed has been throne- 
less and eflFeminate. We have picked and chosen 
according to the weakness of our own tastes, and not 
according to the full-orbed revelation of the truth, 
and we have selected the picturesque and rejected 
the appalling. ''And He had in His right hand 
seven stars : " — yes, we can accept that delicate sug- 
gestion of encircling love and care! ''And His 
countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength : '^ 
— yes, we can bask in the distributed splendour of 
that sunny morn ! " And out of His mouth went a 
sharp two-edged sword!'' — and is that too in our 
selection, or has our cherished image been deprived 
of the sword? Why leave out that sword? Does 
its absence make us more thoughtful and braver 
men, or does it tend to lull us into an easefulness 
which removes us far away from the man who, 
when he saw Him, " fell at His feet as dead '^ ? 

This mild, enervating air of our modern Lutheran- 
ism needs to be impregnated with something of the 
bracing salts of Calvinism. Our very Evangelical- 
ism would be all the sturdier by the addition of a 
little ^' baptised Stoicism." Our water has become 
too soft, and it will no longer make bone for a race 
of giants. Our Lutheranism has been diluted and 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 21 

weakened by the expulsion of some of the sterner 
motive-elements which it possessed at its source. If 
we banish the conceptions which inspire awe, we of 
necessity devitalise the very doctrines of grace, and 
if grace is emasculated then faith becomes anaemic, 
and we take away the very tang and pang from the 
sense of sin. All the great epistles of the Apostle 
Paul begin in the awe-inspiring heights of towering 
mountain-country, and all through the changing 
applications of his thought these cloud-capped 
eminences are ever in sight. Paul's eyes were al- 
ways lifted up " unto the hills,'' and therefore his soul 
was always on its knees. If he rejoiced, it was 
" with trembling " ; if he served the Lord, it was 
" with fear " ; if he was " perfecting holiness," it 
was again '' in the fear of the Lord ! " Always, I 
say, this man's eyes were upon the awful, humbling, 
and yet inspiring heights of revealed truth. Our 
modern theological country is too flat; there are not 
enough cool, uplifted snow-white heights — heights 
like Lebanon, to which the peasant can turn his fever- 
ish eyes even when he is engaged in the labours of the 
sweltering vale. '' Wilt thou forsake the snows of 
Lebanon ? " ^' His righteousness is like the great 
mountains ! " " Go ! stand on the mount before the 
Lord!" ^^ In the year King Uzziah died I saw 
the Lord, high and lifted up ! " " Holy, holy, holy is 
the Lord." That was a mountain view. '' And I 
said, Woe is me ! " And that was the consequent 
awe. If the ministers of the Church were to dwell 



22 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

in those vast uplifted solitudes strange things would 
happen to us. Our speech would be deepened in 
content and tone, and we should speak as they say- 
John Fletcher of Madeley used to speak, " like one 
who had just left the immediate converse of God and 
angels/' But not only so, there would be added to 
our speech the awful energy of a still more powerful 
silence. '^ Every year makes me tremble/' said 
Bishop Westcott towards the end of his years — 
'' every year makes me tremble at the daring with 
which people speak of spiritual things.'' Is not 
the good Bishop's trembling justified? Some time 
ago I preached a sermon on the bitter cup which was 
drunk by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I 
noticed that one of the papers, in a reference to the 
sermon, said that I had spoken on the sufferings of 
Christ '' with charming effect ! " The words sent me 
to my knees in humiliation and fear. Soul of mine, 
what had I said, or what had I left unsaid, or through 
what perverting medium had I been interpreted? 
For the flippancy can be in the reporter as well as in 
the preacher, it can be in the religious press as well 
as in the consecrated minister. But let the applica- 
tion stand to me alone, and let me once again remind 
myself of Westcott's trembling ^^at the daring with 
which people speak of spiritual things." Ay, we are 
reckless and therefore forceless in our speech : we are 
not mighty in our silences. There are some things 
which our people must infer from our reverent 
silences, things which can never be told in speech, 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 23 

and these mountain experiences are among them. 
That awe of the heights will deepen and enlarge 
both the ministry and the Church, it will enrich both 
her speech and her silences, and it will make her 
character unspeakably masculine, forceful, and im- 
pressive. " If in any part of Europe a man was 
required to be burnt, or broken on the wheel, that 
man was at Geneva, ready to depart, giving thanks 
to God, and singing psalms to Him." A mighty 
God makes irresistible men. History has proved, 
and experience confirms it to-day, that this mountain- 
thinking, with all its subduing austerities and 
shadows, would create a powerful and athletic 
Church, a Church of most masculine temper, coura- 
geous both in its aggressions and in its restraints, 
both in its confessions and its reserves, a Church 
that would rouse and impress the world by the 
decisive vigour of its daily life — never dull, never 
feeble, but always and everywhere " fair as the 
moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army 
with banners." '' Zion, get thee up into the high 
mountains! " 

But our impoverished conception of God is not 
the only cause of our comparative poverty and en- 
feeblement. The life of the Church is expressed in 
two relationships, the human and the Divine. The 
Divine fellowship has been impoverished by lack of 
height ; the human fellowship has been impoverished 
by lack of breadth. We have not drunk the iron 
water from the heart of the mountains, and we have 



24 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

therefore lacked a healthy robustness; we have not 
accumulated the manifold treasures of the far-stretch- 
ing plain, and we have therefore lacked a wealthy 
variety. Our fellowship with God has been mean: 
our fellowship with man has been scanty. Nay, 
would it not be just the truth to say that the human 
aspects of our Church fellowship suggest a treasure- 
house which has never been unlocked ? The Church 
is poor because much of her treasure is imprisoned ; 
but she herself carries the liberating key to the iron 
gate ! Our riches are buried in the isolated lives of 
individual members instead of all being pooled for 
the endowment of the whole fraternity. A very 
large part of the ample ministry of the kolvojvui has 
become atrophied, if indeed it has ever been well- 
sustained. I gratefully recognise the mystic, silent 
fellowship among the consecrated members of the 
Church of Christ. I know that out of the very 
heart of " him that believeth '^ there inevitably flow 
'' rivers of living water,'' and I delight to allow my 
imagination to rest upon the well-irrigated country 
of this sanctified society. There is a mystic com- 
merce altogether independent of human expedient or 
arrangement. We cannot bow together without some 
exchange of heavenly merchandise, without angel- 
ministries carrying from island to island the unique 
and peculiar products of their climes. The rich and 
enriching history of the Society of Friends is alto- 
gether corroborative of this great truth of spiritual 
experience. " When I came into the silent assem- 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 25^ 

blies of God's people/' says Robert Barclay, ^^ I felt 
a sweet power among them which touched my heart, 
and as I gave way unto it, I found the evil weakening 
in me and the good raised up.'' But the human side 
of the apostolic kolvo)vui includes riches other than 
these. It is not only a mystic interchange in the 
awful depths of the spirit; it is a fellowship of 
intelligence, it is a community of experience, it is 
the socialising of the individual testimony and wit- 
ness. It is not only the subtle carriage of spiritual 
energy, it is the transference of visions, the sharing 
of discoveries, the assemblage of many judgments, 
whether in the hour of triumph or of defeat. 
^^ When ye come together, every one of you hath a 
psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revela- 
tion, hath an interpretation." That is the broader 
fellowship we lack, and we are all the poorer for it. 
The psalm that is bom in one heart remains unsung, 
and the sadness it was fitted to remove from the heart 
of another abides like a clammy mist. The revela- / 
tion that dawned upon one wondering soul is never ( 
shared, and so another remains in the cold imprison- \ 
ment of the darkness. The private interpretation is 
never given, and for want of the key, many obstruct- 
ing doors are never unlocked. This is the neglected 
side of the apostolic fellowship, and for the want of 
it the Church goes out to confront the world in the 
poverty of a starved individualism rather than in 
the rich and full-blooded vigour of her communistic 
strength. .We are not realising the social basis of the 



26 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

Church's life ; Christian fellowship comprehends not 
only a meeting at a common altar, but a meeting at 
a family hearth, for the reverent and familiar inter- 
change of our experiences with God, and of what has 
happened to us in our warfare with the world, the 
flesh, and the devil. In lieu of this broader and 
richer fellowship we have exalted the ministry of 
one man, and out of the limited pool of his ex- 
periences — and sometimes they are not even ex- 
periences, but only fond and desirable assumptions — 
the whole community has to drink, while the rest 
of the many pools remain untapped. And oh, the 
treasures that are hidden in these unshared and 
unrevealed experiences ! What have our matured 
saints to tell us of the things we wish to know? 
How did they escape the snare, or by what subtlety 
were they fatally beguiled ? How did they take the 
hill, and where did they discover the springs of re- 
freshing? What did they find to be the best foot- 
gear when the gradient was steep, and how did they 
comfort their hearts when they dug the grave by 
the way? And what is it like to grow old, and 
what delicacies does the Lord of the road provide 
for aged pilgrims, and have they seen any particular 
and wonderful stars in their evening sky ? Are not 
all of us unspeakably poorer because these counsels 
and inspirations are untold ? And our younger com- 
municants — how are they faring on the new and 
arduous road? What unsuspected difficulties are 
they meeting? And what unsuspected provisions 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 27 

have they received? And what privilege of service 
has been given them, and what inspiring vision have 
they found in the task ? And what have our stalwart 
warriors to tell us ? How goes the fight in the busi- 
ness fields, on market and exchange ? And what 
hidden secret has the Lord of light been unveiling 
to the ordained lavman ? What wealth of truth and 
glory ? I say, these are breadths of the /cotvcovta we 
do not traverse, these are mines we do not work, and 
the output of our moral and spiritual energy is 
consequently small. I know the perils which abound 
in these particular regions of exercised communion. 
Those who have the least to sav mav be the readiest | 
to speak. The spiritually insolvent may rise and 
talk like spiritual millionaires. The bloom of a 
delicate reserve may be destroyed, and flippant wit- 
nessing may become a substitute for deep experience. 
Easy familiarity may be made the standard of spirit- 
ual attainment, and sensational statements may be 
engendered by the hotbeds of vanity and pride. In 
a fellowship-meeting some members may speak from 
a subtle love of applause, while others may speak from 
an equally illicit sense of shame. I know all this, 
but I know also that there is nothing in the entire 
round of Christian worship and communion which 
is not exposed to abomination and abuse. There is 
not a single plant in your garden which is not the 
gathering-ground of some particular pest ; ay, and 
the more delicate and tender the plant, the more 
multitudinous are the foes. But you do not banish 



28 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

the plant because of the pests; you accept the plant 
and guard against the pests ; and I for one think it 
not impossible to cultivate this larger, richer, more 
social and familiar fellowship, and at the same time 
to create an atmosphere in which these invasive 
perils shall be unable to breathe. Under God, every- 
thing depends upon your leader; and under God, 
cannot wise leaders be grown? — leaders who shall 
be able, with a rare delicacy of tact, born of deep 
and unceasing communion with God, to draw out 
the individual gift of witness and experience, and by 
the accumulated treasure to enrich the entire Church. 
Our Church is comparatively poor and unimpressive ; 
here is a storehouse of untouched resources which I 
am convinced would immeasurably enrich and 
strengthen our equipment in our combined attack 
against the powers of darkness. We need to get 
higher up the mountains. And we need, too, to get 
further out upon the plains. " O, for a closer walk 
with God ! " And '' O, for a closer walk with 
man I '' Closer to the great and holy God, that we 
may be possessed by a deepening and fertilising 
awe; and closer to our brother, that we may move 
in the manifold inspiration and comfort of '^ mutual 
faith '^ and experience. 

I have not been concerned with the suggestion of 
new expedients. It has not been my purpose to 
advocate or defend aggressive and unfamiliar enter- 
prises. My eyes have not been upon the Church's 
conduct, but upon her character: not upon her pro- 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 29 

spectus, but upon her capital : not upon her plan of 
campaign, but upon her fighting strength. " Like 
a mighty army moves the Church of God ! '^ Yes, 
but does she? Are not her regiments sometimes 
almost Falstaffian in their bedraggled impotence? 
How shall she increase her fighting power? How 
shall she enrich her spirit of discipline? And I 
have answered, By taking thought of the untrodden 
heights and the untrodden breadths within her own 
circle, by claiming her purposed and buried re- 
sources in humanity and in God. I am convinced 
that in these ways we should make undreamt-of addi- 
tions to the energy and impact of the Church's 
strength, l^o Church can walk along these unfre- 
quented paths without acquiring the momenta of 
sacrificial grace : and when the power of the Church 
becomes awful and sacrificial, when she bears in her 
body the red '' marks of the Lord Jesus,'' when there 
is '' blood upon the lintel and the two side posts " of 
her door, you may be assured that the arrested mul- 
titude will come together, drawn by the mesmeric 
gravitation of her own irresistible strength. And 
not only strong shall the Church become, strong in 
unselfish daring and persistence, but because of the 
very robustness of her strength she shall be tender 
with an exquisitely delicate compassion. I have 
yielded to none in the advocacy of '' the wooing note '^ 
in the ministry of the word, and with a growing and 
richer confidence I advocate it still. But there is 
the wooing note of a silly, simpering sentimentalism, 



30 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

and there is the wooing note of strong and masculine 
men who have been cradled and moulded and homed 
in the austere nursery and school of the mountains. 
And where can you make your fine wooers if not 
among the deepening ministries of the mountains? 
" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of 
them that bring glad tidings ! '' I shall have no 
fear about the strength and sweetness of the wooing 
note when we are all the children of the heights. 

Given these conditions, and I believe the Church 
will move among the alienated multitudes with an 
illumined and fascinating constraint. The aliena- 
tion of the people is not fundamental and ultimate. 
Deep down, beneath all the visible severances, there 
are living chords of kinship, ready to thrill and to 
respond to the royal note. Those living chords — 
buried if you will beneath the dead and deadening 
crust of formality and sin, buried, but buried alive — 
are to be found in Belgravia, where Henry Drum- 
mond, that man of the high mountains and the 
broad plains, awoke them to response by the strong, 
tender impact of a great evangel and a great ex- 
perience. And those living chords are also to be 
found at the pit's mouth, among the crooked and 
pathetic miners, and they become vibrant with re- 
sponsive devotion, as Keir Hardie has told us that 
his became vibrant, in answer to the awakening 
sweep of the strong, tender hands of the Nazarene. 
The multitude is not sick of Jesus; it is only sick 
of His feeble and bloodless representatives. When 



A TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 31 

once again a great Church appears, a Church with 
the Lord's name in her forehead, a Church with 
fine muscular limbs and face seamed with the marks 
of sacrifice, the multitude will turn their feet to 
the way of God's commandments. I sat a little while 
ago in one of the chambers of the National Gallery, 
and my attention was caught by the vast miscellane- 
ous crowd as it sauntered and galloped through the 
rooms. All sorts and conditions of people passed 
by — rich and poor, the well-dressed and the beggarly, 
students and artisans, soldiers and sailors, maidens 
just out of school and women bowed and wrinkled 
in age: but, whoever they were, and however un- 
arresting may have been all the other pictures in the 
chamber, every single soul in that mortal crowd 
stopped dead and silent before a picture of our 
Saviour bearing His cross to the hill. And when 
the Church is seen to be His body — His very body: 
His lips. His eyes. His ears, His hands, His feet, 
His brain. His heart : His very body — and when the 
Church repeats, in this her corporate life, the brave 
and manifold doings of Judsea and Galilee, she too 
shall awe the multitude, and by God's grace she 
shall convert the pregnant wonder into deep and 
grateful devotion. 

Our times are disturbed, and hopefully and fruit- 
fully disturbed, by vast and stupendous problems. 
On every side the latch is lifting, and the door of 
opportunity stands ajar. But we shall fail in our 
day, as other men have failed in their day, unless by 



82 THE TRANSFIGURED CHUECH 

faith and experience we enter into "the fellowship 
of His suflFerings/^ and become clothed with " the 
power of His resurrection/' Sound social economics 
are not enough; sound political principles are not 
enough; sound creeds and politics are not enough. 
The most robust and muscular principle will faint 
and grow weary unless it is allied with character 
which is rendered unique and irresistible by unbroken 
communion with the mind and will of God. It is 
'' Christ in us " which is '' the hope of glory /^ both 
for the individual and the State. 

Let us abide in Him in total and glorious self- 
abandonment. Let nothing move us from our root- 
age. Let us " pray without ceasing/' and let our 
consecration be so complete and confident that there 
may be presented unto the world a Church " alive 
unto God '' ; a Church as abounding in signs of 
vitality as hedgerows in the spring; a Church quick- 
ened in moral vision, in intellectual perception, in 
emotional discernment; a Church acute, compassion- 
ate and daring, moving amid the changing circum- 
stances of men in the very spirit of her Lord, and 
presenting everywhere the arresting ministry of " a 
hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the temp- 
est, rivers of water in a dry place, and the shadow 
of a great rock in a weary land ! '' 



n 

THE WONDERS OF REDEMPTION 

"I have be^n crucified with Christ; vet I live; and yet no 
longer I, but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now 
live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of 
God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." — Gal. ii. 20. 

Wliat shall we do with this passage ? How shall 
we approach it i Shall we come to it as giiests or as 
controversialists^ as suppliants or as combatants ? 
The fiercest action at Waterloo was fought round 
about a farm, where the fruits were ripening in the 
orchard, and the fields were mellowing for the 
harvest. The farmstead was treated as a battle- 
field, and the ploughshares were beaten into swords, 
and the pruning hooks were converted into spears, 
and the blowing corn was trampled in the gory clav. 
And here, too, is a farmstead, and the fruit hangs 
ripe upon the branches, and the corn is yellow for 
the harvest. How then ? Shall we make it a sort of 
Waterloo, or shall we walk with our Lord in the 
garden '* at the cool of the day " ? I would ap- 
proach it as a guest and not as a soldier. I come to 
feast and not to fight. I would *• sit down under 
the shadow,'' and His fruit shall be ** sweet unto my 
taste." Behind the familiar words of my text there 
are tremendous experiences^, the secrets of which 
lead us into the innermost sanctuarv of the hallowed 

33 



34 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

love and grace of God. And therefore I say I would 
rather sing the song of the harvest-home than the 
song of any victor whose ecclesiastical enemy lies 
prone upon the bloody field. Survey the field! 
*' Yllfio loved me and gave Himself for me/' There 
we have the passion of redemption. '' I am cruci- 
fied with Christy yet I live/' There we have the 
mystery of re-creation. ''I live in faith, the faith 
which is in the Son of God/' There we have the 
secret of appropriation. Such is this Scriptural 
farmstead in whose over-flowing fields and barns it 
is our privilege to make our home. 

Here, then, is the passion of redemption, " The 
Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for 
me." But at once notice an obtrusion which so 
many of our modern thinkers seem to resent. 
'' Who loved me." That is neurotic, and we prefer 
the philosophic. It is sentimental, and we prefer 
the mental. The light is too glaring, too sensa- 
tional, too perfervid, too sunny, and we prefer the 
cooler and less exciting radiance of the moon. 
'' Who loved me." The emotions are stealing into 
the mind, like a moist Alpine mist rising from the 
vale, and mixing itself with the light of common 
day, and many moderns resent the combination. 
They regard the ministry of emotion as deflecting 
the judgment; they prefer desiccated light, dry light, 
light which is absolutely proof against the invasion 
of sentiment and tears. 

And so there are two processes at work. First, 



WONDERS OF REDEMPTION 35 

there is the de-sentimentalising of the religious life. 
We shy at sentiment as we should shy at known 
poison. We are loud in proclaiming the perils of an 
emotional religion, and we are busy draining away 
the emotion and leaving the religion hard and dry. 
And because we de-sentimentalise there is a correla- 
tive process, and we de-personalise. Personal love 
is transformed into diffused energy, the ministering 
angels become established laws, delicate intimacies 
are regarded as the interaction of psychic forces, the 
personal pronouns become abstract nouns, the per- 
sonal movement in the verb becomes a mere current 
of the cosmos in which the sacredness of individu- 
ality is entirely lost. Here is a contrast which I 
will present to you as indicating this particular peril 
of our time. On the one hand, " Where two or three 
are gathered together in My name there am I in the 
midst of them." And on the other hand, ^^ The 
psychic forces are ubiquitous and communion is 
established by pure volition.'' 

Well, is not all this very thin, and attended by 
infinite peril ? We all recognise the dangers of an 
emotional piety, but there are almost equally great 
dangers in a piety from which emotion is entirely 
banished. A perfectly dry eye is blind, and a per-\/ 
fectly dry religion has no sight. We always have 
the clearest vision when there's moisture in the air, 
and a wise personal sentiment has its appointed 
place in the vision of God, and in the creation of a 
fruitful intercourse between the soul and Him. The 



36 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

personal and the emotional have had their prominent 
ministry in the lives of all conspicuous saints. It is 
certainly true of Paul; the sentence in my text is 
typical of many more. " Who loved me and gave 
Himself for me! " ^^ Weigh diligently/' says Mar- 
tin Luther, " every word of Paul, and especially 
mark well his pronouns . . . wherein also there is 
ever some vehemency and power." And it is all 
equally true of Luther himself. Take his great 
commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, and you 
will find that although it is so martial in its mood, 
and so severely and consistently polemical, yet the 
personal emphasis is rarely absent, and the emotions 
are frequently stirred like the brimming fulness of 
the spring tides. Even Calvin himself becomes emo- 
tional, and a tender sentiment lies upon his thought, 
like the dews upon the open moors, when he contem- 
plates the wonders of redeeming grace. If we have 
ever been tempted to think of Calvin as hard and 
dry and rigid, more a herbalist than a gardener, 
with the scheme of his thought stretching over his 
life like a rainless sky, a man devoid of sentiment 
and incapable of tears — if such has been our thought 
of Calvin, let us accompany him through the Epistle 
to the Ephesians, and we shall discover how the 
merely theological becomes the devotional, how the 
severely controversial becomes the worshipful, how 
argument breaks into rapture, and how restrained 
emotion bursts its dykes, and the man's adoration 
becomes moist with grateful tears. It is all equally 



WONDERS OF REDEMPTION 37 

true of another man, nearer to our own time, who is 
not eclipsed even when set in the radiant succession 
of Calvin and Luther and Paul. There is nothing 
more characteristic of Spurgeon than the personal 
emphasis, the daring use of the pronouns, and the 
rich, full sentiment that ever plays about his con- 
templations of the grace and love of bis Lord. 
The greatest wonder in the two worlds of heaven 
and earth he says is this, that " He loved me, and 
gave Himself for me!'' ^^ It rings like marriage 
bells in the heart ! Not all the harps of heaven can 
sound out sweeter music than this, when the Holy 
Spirit speaks it to my soul, ^ The Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave Himself for me/ '' That is the 
grateful sentiment of a strong man, and these are all 
strong men, giants along the pilgrim way, and they 
never attempt to denude their piety of emotion or to 
de-personalise their religious life. They are great in 
the use of the pronouns, and great in the flow of 
tender yearning and desire, and their reason is all 
the more masculine, and their will is all the more 
massive because they do not deny the native rights 
of the heart. And all I wish to add is this, let us 
beware lest, in a healthy recoil from a wishy-washy 
sentimentalism, which pays little homage to the 
reason, we too '^ enter into life maimed,'' by adopt- 
ing a desiccated rationalism, which dries up the very 
sap of piety, and drains away that fine emotion 
which is absolutely requisite to the finer issues of 
our faith. 



88 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

'Now turn to the apostle's personal glorying in the 
ministry of redemption. " He loved me, and gave 
Himself for me.'' And what was the purpose of the 
Lord's redemption? Humanity lay in a dire and 
awful bondage. There was the fearful appetite for 
sin. There was the relentless claim of violated 
law. There was the nemesis of guilt. There was 
the power of the devil. There was the clutch of 
superstition. And there was death and the fear of 
death. That was the bondage. And the Lover loved 
the bondslave, and the glorious crusade of the Lover 
was by love to bring " deliverance to the captive, and 
the opening of the prison to them that are bound." 
" He loved/' Just there a false sentiment is born. 
Xow love is holy. At the very heart of infinite love 
is incorruptible holiness, and in that innermost 
holiness lie the purpose and promise of our redemp- 
tion. '' O give thanks at the remembrance of His 
holiness ! " But it is just here that false sentiment 
is born — that mawkish, effeminate, relaxing senti- 
ment from which strong men recoil. There is a sen- 
timentalism which bows before no shrine of virgin 
flame, and its morals are always lackadaisical, and 
its scheme of redemption is always cheap. It con- 
ceives love as a pretty rainbow, and not as " a rain- 
bow roimd about the throne." It gathers a handful 
of flowers on the lower slopes of the mountains, but 
never ranges above the snow-line, amid the awe- 
inspiring, breath-gripping solitudes of the eternal 
snows. Yes, that is the obtrusive contrast between 



WONDERS OF REDEMPTION 39 

sentiment and sentimentalism. Sentimentalism is 
born among the flowers: a noble sentiment is born 
among the snows. Sentimentalism is bom among 
graces: sentiment is born amid grace. Sentimental- 
ism moves easily among kindnesses : sentiment 
moves wonderingly amid holiness. And therefore, I 
say, sentimentalism is inherently mawkish, while 
true sentiment is inherently austere. Sentimental- 
ism takes liberties, while '' the fear of the Lord is 
clean.'' When, therefore, I hear the evangel, ^' He 
loved me," I know that the glorious ministry is bom 
of holiness : love is holiness in exercise, it is holiness 
in gracious movement, it is ^^ a river of water of life 
proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb." 
Our Lover is holy, and holv is His love. '^ He loved 
me ! " — the unholy and the unclean. 

And because love is holy, love is inconceivably 
sensitive. The unhallowed is the insensitive, for sin 
is ever the minister of benumbment. Yes, the 
unclean makes the moral powers numb, and after 
every sin the sensitiveness is dulled, and life's re- 
sponsiveness impaired. The gradient of purity is 
also the gradient of feeling: they advance or retro- 
grade with equal steps. And therefore it is im- 
possible for us to realise, even remotely, the sensi- 
tiveness of holiness, and therefore, again, our Sa- 
viour's sorrows are inconceivable. "' ^Yas ever sorrow 
like unto my sorrow ? " '' He trod the winepress 
alone." Holy love is infinitely sensitive, and " He 
loved me, and gave Himself for me." 



40 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

And because holy love is sensitive, holy love is 
redemptive. Holiness is ever positive and aggres- 
sive, seeking by its own " consuming fire '' to burn 
the hateful germs of sin. We may test our growth 
in holiness, not by our cloistered recoil from unclean- 
ness, but by our positive action upon it. Holiness is 
not secretive, exclusive, but sanative and redemptive. 
It takes live coals from its altar-fires wherewith to 
purge the lips of the defiled. A negative holiness is 
as monstrous as a square circle, or a heatless fire. 
'' He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with 
fire, and ye shall be . . .'^ Which just means 
this : holy love shall be an eager servant in the min- 
istry of a positive redemption. And so " He loved 
me," He saw me in my low estate, and in His 
holiness He sought my holiness and my everlasting 
peace. 

" He loved me, and He gave Himself for me/' 
For holy, sensitive, redemptive love must of necessity 
be sacrificial. It is the very genius of holiness to be 
superlative, and in its sacrificial ministry it sacrifices 
self. '' He gave Himself for me ! '' Will my readers 
wonder if I say that John Calvin, in his marvellous 
exposition of this epistle, devotes only half-a-dozen 
lines to an attempted interpretation of this phrase? 
And what is the reason? Why, this. That the 
great theologian lays down his pen in glorious, but 
overwhelming and impotent bewilderment ! " No 
words," he says, '' can properly express what this 
means; for who can find language to declare the 



WONDERS OF REDEMPTION 41 

excellency of the Son of Grod ? " And so, I say, he 
just lays downs his pen, and contemplates the glory 
in speechless wonder ! " He gave Himself for me! '' 
He endued Himself with the robe of flesh, He en- 
tered the house of bondage, He took upon Him the 
form of a bondslave that He might set the bondslave 
free. He walked the pilgrim path of limitation, the 
path of sorrow and temptation ; face to face He met 
the devil, face to face He met '* the terror feared of 
man,'' becoming '* obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross." '" He gave Himself for me! " And 
in that holy sacrifice of love the holy law of God 
received perfect obedience, the violated law of Grod 
received a holy satisfaction, the sovereignty of the 
devil was smitten and overthrown, boastful death lost 
its sting, and the omnivorous grave its victory! 
*' O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is 
thy victory ? " And He did it all, did it all ! 
" Wilt thou bring tliy cowl, thy shaven crown, thy 
chastity, thy purity, thy works, thy merits ? " He 
did it all ! Says Luther, *' Paul had nothing in his 
mouth but Christ.'' 

"Nothing in my hands I bring, 
Simply to Thy cross I cling." 

" He loved me and gave Himself for me." Such is 
the passion of redemption. 

Xow let me pass to the secret of appropriation. 
*' That life which I now live I live in faith, the faith 
which is in the Son of God/' And so the virtues of 



42 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

the love-sacrifice are to become mine by faith^ for by 
faith I become incorporated with the triumphant 
Lord. Yes, but what is faith? It is not the de- 
liberate blinding of the judgment. It is not tremu- 
lous movement in a small, fusty room, in which the 
casement window is studiously kept shuttered, and 
in which we make a pious vow never to open the 
lattice, and let in the morning light and air. ]^ow 
is faith the dethronement of the reason, and the 
coronation of caprice ? It is not " the shutting of 
the eyes," and '' the opening of the mouth,'' in 
unillumined expectation. Faith is reasonable dealing 
in reasonable things. Faith is in the science of 
religion what experiment is in the science of matter. 
Faith is reasonable experiment with the glorious 
hypotheses of Christ. We begin with hypotheses, 
we discover truth. But in the Christian religion all 
the hypotheses centre round about the Saviour Him- 
self, and therefore personal faith is personal dealing 
with Christ, faith is trust, experiment is com- 
munion, exploration is by consecration, knowledge 
is by homage; we lose our life and we find it again 
in our Lord. Faith, therefore, is not finally mental, 
or emotional, but volitional. Faith is ultimately 
an act of the will : it is the personal surrender of the 
life to the governance of the Saviourhood of Christ. 
It is the human side of the marriage-covenant be- 
tween the Lamb and the Lamb's bride. Faith is 
the human end of the ministry which establishes 
union between the soul and its Lord. '' We are 



WONDERS OF REDEMPTION 43 

justified by faith/' '' That life which I now live 
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, 
who loved me and gave Himself for me/' Such is 
the secret of appropriation. 

So far for the passion of redemption, and the 
secret of appropriation: and now, thirdly, the won- 
ders of re-creation. What are to be the issues of 
the union, according to the teachings of my text? 
First of all, there is to be a certain mortification: 
" I am crucified with Christ.'' '' The apostle speak- 
eth," says one who is greatly at home in the affairs 
of the heart, " of that high crucifying, whereby sin, 
the devil and death are crucified in Christ, and not 
in me . . . But I, believing in Christ, am by faith 
crucified also with Christ, so that all these things 
are crucified and dead unto me." Ay, and that not 
fictionally, but in sober and most literal truth. One 
of the gifts of redemption is a certain deadness; 
there is a dead side to a true believer: on that side, 
while he believes, his senses do not operate, and he 
offers no response. Have I not seen it scores upon 
scores of times ? Have I not seen a believer, who 
by belief has become one with Christ, and who has 
become dead to the old baneful world of haunting 
guilt? Did I not hear one say, who had revelled 
forty years in sin, and who had become united with 
the Lord, that that forty-year-old man was dead, 
^* crucified with Christ," and if any accusing day 
should shake a threatening finger at him, he would 
laugh in triumph, the finger was pointed at the dead, 



44 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

for that particular man " was crucified, dead and 
buried, and his life was hid with Christ in God ! '^ 
And have I not seen a believer, who by belief has 
become one with Christ, and who has become dead to 
the insidious fascination of a glittering and destruc- 
tive world ? '' Good-bye, proud world, I'm going 
home ! '' And have I not seen a believer, who by be- 
lief has become one with Christ, and who has become 
dead to death, and in death has exulted in '^ the power 
of an endless life.'' Oh, yes, one of the primary 
gifts of grace is the gift of deadness — deadness to 
the threat of yesterday, deadness to the fear of to- 
morrow, deadness to the frown of the immediate 
circumstance, and deadness to majestic death itself! 
'' The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 
'' I have been crucified with Christ/' " 1 died." 

But there are other fruits of the union which is 
humanly established by faith in Christ. " I have 
been crucified with Christ " : mortification ; '^ yet 
I live " : vitalisation ! '' If we died with Him, we 
shall also live with Him ! " The gift of deadness 
is the companion gift of vitality. " Everything 
shall live whither the river cometh." Dormant 
powers shall be aroused and shall troop forth out 
of their graves, powers of holy perception, and holy 
desire, and holy sympathy, and holy faculty for 
service. And old powers shall be renewed, and they 
shall be like anaemic weaklings who have attained a 
boisterous vitality. Our powers are far from their 
best until they become united to Christ. I saw a 



WONDERS OF REDEMPTION 45 

bit of edelweiss the other day growing in a garden 
in one of our suburbs; but it had to be labelled, it 
was so unlike its masculine kinsman gripping the 
desolate precipices of the lofty Alps. Ay, you must 
see the edelweiss at home! And if we want to see 
what love really is, and will, and conscience, and 
chivalry, we must see them at home, in their native 
clime, rooted and grounded in the life and love of 
the eternal Lord. " In Christ shall all be made 
alive." 

" I have been crucified with Christ : yet I live : 
and yet no longer I, hut Christ .../'" So that 
is where we arrive. Mortification by Christ, vitali- 
sation in Christ, the manifestation of Christ. '^ I 
live, yet no longer I.'' What is that but the suppres- 
sion of the ego? Would it not be better to say, 
What is that but the conversion and transfiguration 
of the ego, and the emergence of the Lord ? " No 
longer I, Christ liveth in me ! " The Lord who per- 
vades the life also dominates it. " The life which 
I now live in the flesh " reveals His power and His 
glory. He takes my humble affairs and He uses 
them as the shrine of His own Presence, the lamp- 
stand for His own eternal light. The life in the 
home, in the market, in the school, in the senate, 
in the closet, in the polling-booth, — the entire circuit 
of that life '' which I now live in the flesh," '' I live 
in faith ! " '' I live, yet no longer I, but Christ 
liveth in me." That is the Christian ideal, and that 
is the Christian possibility, however pitiably remote 



46 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

we may be from its attainment. Yes, that is the 
ideal, that Christ lives again in me, that my activities 
are the motions of my Lord; that in me He faces 
again the Pharisee, in me He denounces again the 
oppressor of '' the poor and him that hath no helper," 
in me He ministers again to the hungry, the para- 
lysed, and the fever-stricken, and in me He cham- 
pions again the cause of the Magdalene and the little 
child. '' I live, yet no longer I, but Christ/' Men 
shall gaze upon the issues of the life, and say, " It is 
the Lord ! " and they shall glorify our Father which 
Ib in heaven. 



in 

THE LOVE OF GOD 

I am not going to argue about it, I seek to enjoy 
it. I am not going to prove it, but to proclaim it. 
We will not discuss the menu, but sit down to the 
feast. For the soul is so subtly tempted to spend in 
controversy what ought to be used in appropriation. 
It is surely well that we should frequently put aside 
our attempted analyses of the bread of life, and 
should '' taste and see how gracious the Lord is." 
We must not always be in the laboratory; the 
laboratory is useless unless we meet the Lord as 
guests, and feed upon the rich provisions of His 
table. And therefore my purpose is a very simple 
one, however difficult it may be of achievement. It 
is to attempt to vivify that most tremendous com- 
monplace, " God loves you." If we could be sure of 
that, and live in it, the assurance would be a strange 
minister of personal redemption. It would give 
firmness to our thinking, nobility to our feeling, 
buoyancy to our steps, and it would transform the 
spirit of mourning into the habits of praise. 

'^ Grod loves vou! " How shall I think about it? 
There are those who tell us we can form no concep- 
tion of it. It belongs to a realm and climate which 
we have never traversed, and which are quite un- 

47 



48 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

known. We can no more realise it than we can real- 
ise the boundless stretches of forest in the mid-west 
of America from the possession of a pineneedle, or 
the splendours of its gorgeous canyons from a square 
inch of coloured stone, or its multitudinous bird- 
life from one feather of a songster's wing. Things 
are so vastly different in range and profundity be- 
tween the human and the Divine that we cannot 
safely reason from one to the other. Well, if that be 
so, all pretended revelation of God is a mockery and 
a delusion. We may as well cast it out as rubbish 
to the void, we may as well close the doors and 
windows of our minds and make our judgments 
blind. Not so do I accept our position. I have no 
sympathy with those who disparage the nobilities of 
human life in order to magnify the nobility of God. 
We do not magnify His beauty by deliberately call- 
ing our own beautiful things ugly. We do not 
glorify the love of God by treating a pure mother's 
love as tinselled jewellery, or as seedy and unworthy 
moral attire. We must reason from the best we 
know to what exists in God. And, therefore, quietly 
and confidently I accept the best and the fairest in 
human love as my implement, however poor it be, 
in my exploration of the glorious love of God. Hu- 
man love is not as a dead feather, plucked from a 
dead bird, in its relation to the grandeur of a con- 
tinent. It is a songster itself, and filling the air 
with song. Human love is not a bit of the furniture 
of the Homeland, it is a veritable bit of its life. 



THE LOVE OF GOD 49 

When, therefore, I want to think of the love of God, 
I do not reject the helpful suggestion of human 
motherhood, and fatherhood, and wifehood, and hus- 
bandhood, and childhood. Xay, rather do I listen 
to their music all the more eagerly, and in their love- 
strains I hear ^^ sweet snatches of the songs above," 
faint echoes of the wonderful love of God. N'o, the 
love of our Father in heaven is not altogether unlike 
the love of all good fathers on earth. It is very like 
and yet very unlike ; so like as to be akin, so unlike 
that it fills us with adoring wonder and praise; 30 
like, as the vast organ and the harmonium are akin, 
and can express the same tune: so unlike that, as 
with the organ and the harmonium, one overwhelms 
the other in range and capacity, in height and depth, 
in length and breadth of musical glory. " God loves 
you,'^ and you have heard a bit of the tune in your 
mother's love, in your father's love, in the love of 
your husband, in the love of your wife, in the love of 
your little child. Human love may be only as a 
child's earliest broken song in comparison with the 
Hallelujah Chorus, but it is akin. " Now Jonathan 
loved David ; " " God loves thee.'' 

If that be so, the Bible encourages us to think in a 
great and magnificent way of this love of God, of 
which we catch faint strains in human-kind. Let 
us remind ourselves how we are encouraged to think 
about it. 

First of all, then, we are taught to think that God's 
love is the most real thing in the universe. .What 



50 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

are the real things in the universe, the things that 
veritably abide? In other days men spake of the 
unchanging heavens and the everlasting hills. But 
even while they used the figure of speech, in their 
very hearts they knew that the very thing which had 
provided the symbol was in a state of flux and was 
passing away. Concerning those very heavens they 
said, '' As a vesture shalt Thou roll them up, and 
they shall be changed." Concerning those very hills 
they said, '' At Thy presence they melt away.'' Yes, 
even the things which provide our symbols of the 
permanent are themselves fading away. But the 
transiency of the material needs no emphasis. 
'^ Change and decay in all around I see." We have 
only to return to the home of our childhood and 
look upon the broken circle of our friends; nay, to 
revisit a place after an absence of ten years gives us 
a startling revelation of the silent ravages of de- 
structive time. It is certainly not in the material 
realm that we find the real and the permanent. Our 
painfully accumulated riches " take to themselves 
wings and fly away." Where, then, shall we look 
for the real? Not again in human disposition. 
Even the noblest strains are fickle and broken. The 
songster is the victim of caprice, and has his silent 
moods. Discords afflict the harmony ; sometimes the 
noblest music is like jangled bells, " out of tune and 
harsh." Where, then, shall we look for it ? In " the 
love of God." There is nothing transitory about it, 
nothing fickle, nothing capricious, nothing shadowy, 



THE LOVE OF GOD 51 

nothing unreal. God's love abides, the permanent 
background in the moving play. We cannot awake 
and find it absent ; and while we sleep it never steals 
away. It is the most real thing in the universe. It 
never changes ; and God loves thee. '' I have loved 
thee with an everlasting love.'' 

And then we are taught to think that God's love is 
the biggest thing in the universe. Let us think of 
some of the biggest things we know, and then we 
will lift our eyes upon one that is bigger than all. 
Well, first of all, there is sin. Take up the news- 
paper in these days when everything is dragged into 
a glaring publicity, when nothing is allowed to re- 
main veiled or concealed. Eead the accounts from 
the police-courts, or sometimes worse still, read the 
police-work done by the newspaper itself. Let the 
hideousness pile itself before our gaze. Then add 
to it the sin, often the blacker sin, of which the 
police can take no account. Think of the vice which 
is clever enough to keep within the circle of legal 
virtue. Think of the indecency which does not be- 
come obscenity. Think of the unfairness which 
does not break the law of theft. Think of the well- 
trinnned or suggestive gossip which guards itself 
from the law of libel. Think of the insinuations 
which are not indictments, and the enmity which is 
not scandal. Again, let the hideousness pile itself 
up like a mountain! Then let us go into our own 
heart. Firmly examine the range of our own sinful- 
ness. Note the extent of our corruption. Mark 



52 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

how the rottenness infests some of our presumably 
finest fruit. Then exercise the imagination upon 
similar maladies in the lives of others ; and then let 
the burdened imagination roam scout-like around 
the world. Again, I say, let the hideousness ac- 
cumulate pile upon pile-! What then? God's love 
is bigger still ! Nay, God's Book declares that hu- 
man sin, amazing and gigantic as it is, yet, when 
compared with God's love it is as a stone dropped 
in the immeasurable sea ! " Where sin abounds 
grace doth much more abound." And that God loves 
thee and me! Yes, bring out the big things: His 
love is bigger, even as the Himalayas tower above 
the rolling hills on the plain. Here is a big thing 
in itself, human hatred. Do we know anything 
deeper than malicious hatred? The hatred of an 
lago, or of a Pharisee for the Christ? Think of 
the hate which at this very hour, in all this land of 
ours, is pursuing its dark, subterranean work, de- 
vising ministries of mischief, plotting bloody trage- 
dies of revenge, while in the open day it wears the 
garb of a gracious friend and an angel of light. A 
deep thing! Ay, deep indeed. Do we know a 
deeper? Only one, the love of God! 

" love of God, how deep and great ! 
Far deeper than man's deepest hate, 
Self-fed, self-kindled, like the light 
Changeless, eternal, infinite." 

His love is the biggest of all big things. And that 
God lovee thee and me. 



THE LOVE OF GOD 53 

And, thirdly, we are taught to think that the love 
of God is the mo3t personal, the most individual 
thing in the universe. Our God loves everybody as 
though each one were everybody and there were no 
one else to share it. God^s love is not a vague, 
diffused sentiment^ like a senseless, enveloping air, 
enclosing us all in an undiscerning embrace. God's 
love is a conscious, intelligent, purposeful relation- 
ship, not concerned with a human abstraction called 
the world, but with individual men and women. If 
I may reverently say it, the word '* masses '' could 
never be in the Divine vocabulary ; not '' masses," but 
'^ children," not ^' race," but " family," not " my 
world," but '^ my child." That is the superlative 
wonder in the altogether wonderful evangel of grace — 
that the Divine love can concentrate on everybody, 
as though, I say, each one were everybody, and 
there was only one child in the Father's house. And 
so it was altogether fitting, because altogether true, 
that the Apostle Paul dared to appropriate the 
evangel to his own heart and life, and to sing with 
blessed triumph, '* He loved me, and gave Himself 
for me ! " And you and I can sing it ; and you and 
I ought to sing it. '^ He loved me, and gave Himself 
for me ! " And we ought to teach our children to 
sing it, and the children of the stranger, and prodigal 
men and women who are far out of the way. '' He 
loved me, and gave Himself for me." For it is a 
great moment, a solemn moment, greater and more 
solemn than the day of birth, or the day of marriage, 



54 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

or the day of death — greater and more solemn than 
all, when the soul becomes aware and assured of the 
love of Godj and sings as she goes, '' He loved me, 
and gave Himself for me/' Yes, God's love is the 
most personal, the most individual thing in the world, 
hungrily seeking out persons to laden them with 
sacred treasure, hungrily seeking out you to bring 
the sacred treasure to you. God's love is personal, far 
more personal than your love for your child, even 
though you have only one ; and God loves you and me. 
And I turn to the Book again, and I am taught 
that the love of God is the most sacrificial thing in 
the universe. Again let the eyes look round in 
quest of the finest human love engaged in holy 
sacrifice. Think of a mother and her frail and 
fragile child. Think of a wife pouring out sacri- 
ficial love upon a dissolute husband, or a husband 
pouring out sacrificial love upon his dissolute wife. 
Think of fatherhood searching highways and byways 
for a prodigal son, or a son scouring the dreary hills 
for a prodigal father. Think of miners risking life 
in sacrificial service. Think of all the radiant in- 
stances of glorious chivalry which so often shine 
upon our common life. Think of them! Exalt 
them! And then think that we are taught that in 
com^parison with the sacrificial love of God these are 
only faint and dim. The very love we have is bor- 
rowed fire, a livis coal from the altar-fires of God. 
And our love, beautiful as it is, altogether gracious 
and glorious as it is, surpassingly precious as it is, 



THE LOVE OF GOD 56 

is only as the genial fire on the hearthstone com- 
pared with the voluminous and overwhelming splen- 
dour of the blazing sun. He is " the Father of 
all mercies, and the God of all comfort/' living in 
love, living to love, delighting in sacrifice, with- 
holding nothing from His children, " for He that 
spared not His only Son, but freely oflFered Him 
for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give 
us all things ? " 

And, lastly, we are taught to think of the love of 
God as the holiest thing in the universe. God's 
love is inconceivably pure, so pure that the newly- 
fallen snow offers but a dim and sullied emblem of 
its glory. And just because God's love is holy it 
aspires after holy ends. It is hungry for the loved 
ones to be holy too. It thinks less of pain than it 
does of sim And, therefore, it may resort to pain 
to get rid of sin. Holy love is not afraid of dis- 
cipline, not afraid to wound if it may the more 
effectually heal. Holy love prefers to reprove rather 
than to neglect, to make the soul suffer rather than 
permit it to die. It is only when love loses its fires 
that its attentions become indifferent. The love of 
God abides, and while a single stain defiles His 
child the gracious crusade of holiness will persist. 
Just because God's love is holy His loved ones will 
one day stand by " the sea of glass," '^ clothed in 
white robes, and palms in their hands," having 
gotten the victory over death and sin. And this 
holy God loves thee and me. 



56 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

So lift up your hearts, the Lord loves you ! This 
love of God, the most real thing in the universe, and 
the biggest, and the most personal, and the most 
sacrificial, and the most holy, rests upon you. Re- 
spond to it ! Rejoice in it ! Live and die in it. 

" O love that will not let me go, 
I rest my weary soul on Thee; 
I give Thee back the life I owe, 
That in Thine ocean depths its flow 
May richer, fuller be! " 



IV. 

THE MAGNETISM OF THE UPLIFTED 

LORD 

" I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
Me."— John xii. 32. 

The context gives us the needful illumination to 
see our way. ''Now there icere certain Greel'S 
among those that went up to worship at the feast: 
these therefore came to Philip . . . and asked him^ 
saying, Sir, we would see Jesus/' The personality 
of Jesus was already becoming attractive, the magnet 
was beginning to draw, the sons and daughters were 
coming from afar! But why were these Greeks 
drawn unto Him ? Perhaps it was only curiosity, 
which nevertheless is often the mother of wonder 
and awe, and the minister of deathless devotion. 
Or, perhaps it was heart-hunger, the pangs of un- 
satisfied craving, an unrest which philosophy was 
unable to soothe, a vastness of desire for which 
eloquence, and music, and art had no bread. 
"Sir, we would see Jesus!'' ''Philip cometh and 
telleth Andrew: Andrew cometh, and Philip, and 
they tell Jesus/' And what will Jesus say when 
this first little gi'oup of enquirers from the outer 
world arc at His door ? *' And Jesus said. The hour 
is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified!'' 

67 



68 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

Here is the beginning of the glory He seeks, the 
drawing of all men unto Him. Here is the little 
band of advance scouts which precede a host which 
no man can number. But this little company is 
only like a small handful of precocious blades of 
corn upon an otherwise barren field. They are 
almost before their time. Before the entire field 
can be covered with the promising verdure there 
must be a winter, and in the secret virtue of that 
winter shall the spring and autumn glory be found. 
Pirst a winter, and then, not a few straggling blades, 
but an uncounted number! Even now there is a 
little movement, some faint stirring of aspiring life, 
but wait until winter has added its mystic ministry, 
and the movement will be as the silent march of a 
vast army. Even now Jesus draws men. But wait 
until the winter is passed! First, let Jesus die! 
" If it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.'' " I, if I 
be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." The 
tendency of this little handful of Greeks shall be- 
come the drift of the race. 

And so the magnet is to be the Lord Jesus in the 
wonderful energies of His transcendent sacrifice. 
'' I, if I be lifted up." " As Moses lifted up the 
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of 
Man be lifted up." No one can really feel the 
pressing mystery of the cross who does not enter it 
possessed by the conviction of the sinlessness of 
Jesus, and realising something of the vast range of 
consciousness in which His spirit moved; His sense 



THE UPLIFTED LORD 69 

of the absolute oneness of Himself and God; His 
unwavering sense of the voluntariness of His sur- 
render to the powers of men and the pains of earth, 
^^ Xo man taketh it from Me '^ ; His expressed con- 
sciousness, that, by the raising of the eyes, He could 
call to His aid legions of attendant forces which 
would make Him invincible; His calm assurance 
that '' all things had been given into His hands," 
His submission to the cross in that assurance; all 
these remove His death from the ranks of common 
martyrdom, and place Him in an awful and glorious 
isolation. His martyr Stephen was forced into 
death: Jesus walked into it. From the very be- 
ginning His steps were set towards it. '" He set His 
face steadfastly to go/' and with an irresistible 
stride He paced forward to the self -chosen consumma- 
tion of sacrifice. He descended the entire slope of 
sacrifice, from grade to grade, until He touched 
death, and destroyed the power of death, until He 
tore out death's sting, which is sin, and in one su- 
preme victory triumphed over both. 

Xow, our Lord declares that it is in the energy of 
that transcendent sacrifice that His personal mag- 
netism is to be found. The energy of His love as 
displayed in His life, compared with the energy of 
His love as displayed in His death, is as dispersed 
sunshine compared with focussed sunshine, sunshine 
concentrated in a burning heat. And it is this 
focussed sacrificial energy of His death, " The last 
pregnant syllable of God's great utterance of love/' 



60 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

which our Lord declares is to be the ministry of 
attraction, by which all men are to be drawn unto 
Him. This teaching is not altogether strange, not 
altogether removed from the proof of human 
experience. Even upon the plane of common life, 
among men of narrow consciousness and sinful habit, 
the element of sacrifice is strangely magnetic, and 
allures the interest and admiration of men. We 
recall how the young Prince of the Netherlands, 
alien and unpopular, estranged from the people's 
hearts, drew the people to him by the energies of 
sacrifice. And we recall the heroic skipper, who by 
a midnight sacrifice drew to him the homage of 
kings and the affectionate acclamation of the race. 
Yes, and sometimes a notoriously bad man is kindled 
into some conspicuous act of heroic sacrifice, and in 
the tremendous energy of the pure flame his unworthi- 
ness seems consumed, and his infamy is forgotten. 
So that we are familiar with the magnetism of 
sacrifice even amid our own defiled and narrow lives. 
But what shall be the energies when the sacrificial 
being is the sinless Lord Himself, with strength to 
confront everything and never be defiled, with power 
to break the double tyranny of sin and death — what 
shall be the energy, its quantity and its quality, when 
He shall go '^ without the camp," to suffer and to 
die ? " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
Me." The energies of that self-sacrificing Redeemer 
constitute the mightiest magnet known among men. 
There is nothing like that magnet. Test it by 



THE UPLIFTED LORD 61 

the individual testimony. As a matter of common 
experience, what draws men like the uplifted Lord ? 
You must have noticed, as I again and again have 
noticed, how a silent awe steals over an assembly, 
when the preacher consciously approaches the cross, 
and leads the contemplation to that stupendous sac- 
rifice. If he turn to matters ecclesiastical, political, 
aesthetical, educational, the tension is relaxed, and 
we can assume an attitude of easy detachment. It is 
the uplifted Lord who tightens the strings, and makes 
us mentally and spiritually tense, and draws us to 
our knees. What has experience to tell us of His 
wonderful workings I It tells us this, that nothing 
so overcomes the deathlv and the deadlv in man as 
" the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'^ 
It breaks up the frozen indifference of men. It 
makes them graciously uneasy. It disturbs them 
with promising disquietude. It awakes moral pains 
by restoring the moral circulation, and it accom- 
plishes resurrection through the pangs of hell and 
the sorrows of death. But the sacrificial Lord does 
more than inspire initial unrest. He converts the 
imeasy stirrings into definite spiritual movement. 
He not only breaks up inertia. He determines direc- 
tion. He awakes men, and He also draws them. 
He draws men towards Himself, and they move to 
a close and personal communion. There is nothing 
else which works in that way, and to such swift and 
personal devotion. You may proclaim the Lord as 
a great ethical teacher, but the ethics may generate 



62 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

no more energy than do the Ten Commandments 
painted upon the cold surface of the walls of a church. 
You may proclaim Him as a young reformer, but 
the programme will no more lift men out of their 
deadly grooves than a party programme will lift 
men out of their sins. Jesus, the young prophet, 
may draw cheers ; the uplifted Lord draws men. The 
young Reformer may gain men's signatures; the 
sacrificial Saviour wins their hearts. '' I drew them 
with cords of a man, with bands of love.'^ 

"Just as I am, without one plea, 
But that Thy blood was shed for me. 
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee, 
O Lamb of God, I come! " 

Test the energies of this magnet by the testimony 
of history as to what is the power which has most 
conspicuously swayed great masses of mankind. 
Whenever the multitudes have been profoundly 
moved, whenever stagnant peoples have been stirred 
into newness and freshness of life, it has been by 
the energies of the uplifted Lord. Let us confine 
the range of vision to our own country, and to our 
own country within the limited circle of the last 
hundred and fifty years. I am not aware of any 
vast upheaval of the national sentiment which has 
taken place within that season which was not directly 
occasioned by the energies of the uplifted Lord. 
What we call the Evangelical Revival carries its 
interpretation in its name. When the England of 



THE UPLIFTED LORD 63 

the eighteenth century — so superficial, so cruel, so 
soddened in immoral indifference — began to move 
toward a cleaner and a sweeter and more enlight- 
ened life, the magnet that drew her was the Lamb 
of God. The miner in Cornwall and iSTorthumbria, 
the workman in the potteries, the shepherd on the 
northern moors, the poor cotter in Scotland and in 
Ireland, all felt the pull of the magnet, and sped 
with eager feet toward their Lord. Let any one turn 
to John Wesley's journal, and read the inner story 
of that wonderful revival, and he will be in no doubt 
as to what was the quickening ministry that created 
it. From shepherd and fisherman and miner alike 
this was the common cry, " O Lamb of God, I 
come ! '^ And it has not been otherwise in a nearer 
day. 'No one has ever moved the multitudes except 
the men with the magnet of the uplifted Lord. 
K'ay, it is passing strange that only the men with 
the uplifted Lord seem to seek the multitudes at all ! 
Have you known of any Moody, with similar passion 
and similar aim, but with another magnet than this 
of the crucified God, who has moved the masses of 
our countrymen, and drawn them into the holy paths 
of higher life and service? If such there be, I 
should like to know of them, for as yet they have 
never passed across my sight. No, when the multi- 
tudes are swayed, they are swayed by the Lamb. I 
am not now asking you to account for it, or to 
accept any theory concerning it, but to accept the 
plain testimony of experience, that some marvellous 



64* THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

magnetic energy attaches to the uplifted Lord, and 
that there is nothing to be named alongside it in its 
power to grip and draw the multitudes. With all 
my heart I believe in what Mr. Spurgeon said — and 
altogether apart from his supreme genius his own 
ministry afforded abundant proof — that there is 
nothing in this world which so impresses men, and 
nothing which at bottom they are so eager to hear, 
as just " the old, old story," told by men who know 
its power, '' of Jesus and His love." That is where 
the Labour Church is most assuredly doomed to fail 
and to die, and many who are reading these words 
will live to see it. 

^^ I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." 
Then in the energies of this sacrificed Christ we are 
not only to find the dynamic of redemption, but the 
secret of human brotherhood. If men are drawn 
to Him they will be drawn nearer to one another. 
It will be like moving from the isolated suburbs of a 
great circumference down the many radii to a com- 
mon centre, and as we approach that centre we shall 
draw near to one another. The central Magnet will 
communicate something of its own attractive energy 
to every approaching soul, and by the common en- 
ergy shall souls be drawn together. The secret of 
brotherhood is found in common nearness to the 
Lord. But how dare I say that when I look round 
upon the Churches of to-day ? Is there anything less 
like brotherhood than the spectacle which they pre- 
sent to the world? So far from being possessed 



THE UPLIFTED LORD 65 

by some common energy of mutual attraction, we 
seem to be possessed by an energy which occasions 
mutual repulsion. If by some happy chance we 
find ourselves on a common platform, we either half 
apologise for our relationship, or we indulge in out- 
bursts of mutual eulogy and surprise which reveal 
how infrequent and unreal is our communion. If 
it be true that by drawing near the centre we as- 
suredly draw near to one another, what has happened 
to explain our position? This has happened: we 
have forgotten the Centre, or we have made centres 
of our own. We have made a theory a centre, a 
form of ecclesiastical government a centre, and be- 
cause all men will not travel toward our self-made 
centre, there is antagonism and repulsion, and mutual 
throwing of stones, and the religion which was pur- 
posed to be a minister of brotherly union becomes 
the embittered agent of division and strife. But I 
tell you that wherever, in any and all denominations, 
men get their eyes clearly fixed upon the face of the 
sacrificial Lord, upon the uplifted Christ of God, 
they do most assuredly move and draw together, and 
these men, even at the present time, are living and 
working in co-operative service and in brotherly con- 
cord and peace. It is the man who strikes his spear 
and plants his standard in his own self-chosen and 
self-created centre, and who will not look beyond 
his formal creed, his rigid polity, and his fleshly 
succession, it is this man, wherever he may be found, 
who is the foe of human fellowship and Christian 



66 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

intimacy, and who retards the gracious oneness for 
which our Saviour lived and bled and died. When 
we get our eager eyes fixed upon the Lord, the Lord 
uplifted in superlative sacrifice, when we pierce 
through every secondary medium, and contemplate 
the primary glory, we shall move down the different 
radii of our Church relationships — Episcopalian, 
Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Friend — 
and we shall emerge in the fair light of the oneness 
of a common love, and in the full, sweet harmony 
of a common confession, " My Lord and my God! '^ 
'' I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.'' 
" I, if I be lifted up ! " There is energy there to 
redeem us all. There is energy there to lift us 
out of the cold prison-house of guilt, out of the cruel 
tyranny of sin, out of the bitterness of death. '' I 
will draw ! '' No one else can do it. '^ I,'' and 
this in contrast to " the prince of this world '' in 
the previous verse. These are the combatants : " the 
prince of this world " versus the uplifted Lord ! I 
place my reliance on the Lord ! " Whosoever be- 
lieveth on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting 
life.'' 

" Drawn to the Cross which Thou hast blessed 
With healing gifts for souls distressed^ 
To find in Thee my life, my rest, 
Christ crucified, I come! " 

" To be what Thou wouldst have me be, 
Accepted, sanctified in Thee, 
Through what Thy grace shall work in me, 
Christ crucified, I come! '' 



V 

SON AND HEIR! 

"Thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a 
son, then an heir through God." — Gal. iv. 7. 

" Son " and " heir " ! So that is how our posi- 
tion and prospects are described ! " Son and heir ! " 
Would the world recognise our status when it looks 
upon us ? I do not refer to such seasons as the time 
of a great convention, when our festive feelings are 
excited, and we move about with a certain gaiety of 
demeanour, and with buoyant and exuberant strides. 
In our festive moments we may have the royal car- 
riage of sons and heirs, and we may be distinguished 
from the depressed and heavy-footed multitude. But 
how do we appear when the festivities are over, when 
the trumpet is silent, and the shouting dies, and the 
banners and the bunting are taken down, and the 
holiday attire is put away in the drawer, and we are 
back again on the old grey road, in the dusty work- 
shop, in the monotonous office, behind the irritating 
counter, in the familiar drudgery of the humming 
school ? How, then, w^hen the world looks rn upon 
us, and finds us in our everyday clothes, and when we 
are moving not to the martial music of a band, 
but to the click of a remorseless machine, do we 
appear like sons and heirs of God Almighty? Are 
there any signs about us of aristocratic breeding? 

67 



68 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

Do we betray the presence of royal blood ? Is there 
something in our demeanour, subtle, impressive, in- 
fluential, something which our clothes can never 
hide, and which abides through the gleaming hour 
of festivity, and through the long, grey stretch of the 
commonplace years ? If we are of true blood, " blue 
blood," of royal lineage, " bom . . . not of the will 
of man, but of God,'' there must be something about 
us emphatic and unique, which will fill the world 
with wonder. If we are " sons and heirs,'' the un- 
believing world will remark upon the quality of our 
breeding, and upon the variety and fulness of our 
wealth. Men will whisper to one another about our 
most palpable acquisitions, and our most evident 
emancipation. They will speak in this wise : ^^ They 
are no longer bondservants, moving about their ways 
with the feverish and restless timidity of a slave; 
they have something of the strong and lordly mien 
of the owner of the estate! " Is this the judgment 
of the world upon you and me ? Do we reveal " blue 
blood," the Lord's aristocracy, or is there nothing 
about us to occasion notice or remark? Are we 
so at one with the colour and movement of the com- 
mon crowd ? Again I ask — is there anything kingly 
or queenly about our very walk and conversation? 
If we have the consciousness of sons and heirs, that 
consciousness will get into our faces, on to our 
lips, into our courtesies, into our handgrips, and there 
will be royal significance in all the issues of our 
life. But perhaps the consciousness is not present 



SON AND HEIR 69 

and regnant in our lives. Perhaps we are Chris- 
tians who have not yet claimed or even recognised 
our kingdom. PerhajDS we are moving about in 
depression and poverty, and our vast inheritance lies 
untrodden and unexplored. Perhaps we are hug- 
ging the title-deeds, and we have never realised the 
unspeakable value of our land. Perhaps we have 
sat down on the inside of the gate, like a waiting 
slave, and we are not striding over the estate like the 
'' son and heir.'' " Thou art no longer a bondservant 
but a son : and if a son, then an heir ! '' To some it 
has been said, in words of awful disillusionment, 
^' Thou knowest not that thou art poor ! '' To others 
there may be equal need of the awaking and inspir- 
ing evangel, " Thou knowest not that thou art rich! " 
" Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place 
where thou art, northward, and southward, and east- 
ward, and westward : for all the land which thou seest 
to thee will I give it. . . . Arise, walk through the 
land in the length of it and in the breadth of it : for 
I will give it unto thee." Thou art the son and heir. 
I wonder where our impoverishment begins. Per- 
haps it begins in an imperfect sense of sonship, which 
leads to an imperfect realisation of our inheritance. 
Let the one be starved, and the other will be im- 
poverished. Exalt the one, and you will enlarge the 
other. What think you, then, of sonship? What 
are its primary characteristics ? Can we open this 
casket, and inspect a few of its shining jewels? 
.What shall we mention as the first of the ingredients 



70 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

in heavenly sonship? Will yon be astonished if I 
begin with Reverence? That may appear to be a 
very grey element, bnt it is the groundwork of all the 
rest. There can be no true sonship when there is 
flippancy at the core of the life. At the very centre 
of the life there must be a little chapel, serene and 
untroubled, where the wings are quietly folded and 
the soul is prostrate in ceaseless adoration. In the 
great chapter which tells the story of a prophet's call 
and ordination, the seraphim are described as crea- 
tures with six wings ; " with twain he covered his 
face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with 
twain he did fly.'' I think we can claim kinship 
with the seraphim in that we are in possession of 
the pair of wings with which to fly! Never were 
Christian people more busy in flying about than they 
are to-day! I have said more than once that our 
popular vocabulary reeks with perspiration! We 
are for ever on the move, and busy doing this and 
doing that from morning until night. But I am not 
quite sure whether we could claim kinship with the 
seraphim in respect to the other wings. I think we 
are gravely lacking in those folded wings which sug- 
gest an amazed sense of the Highest, and which be- 
token reverence, awe, silence, and reserve. Rever- 
ence never hinders service — it enriches and perfects 
it. Perhaps if we had the folding, covering wings 
our very flying would have more serviceable results. 
Service which is devoid of reverence ever tends to 
run to superficial waste. If life has no holy of holies, 



SON AND HEIR 71 

then the whole of life is apt to become a mere shop, 
the sphere of common barter, or an entertainment 
house, the domain of flippant pleasures, or an open 
refreshment room, the place of a carnal feast. And 
so I want to plead that our sonship be enriched by 
the cultivation of a deeper and more constant rever- 
ence. In this matter I am afraid that we Protestants 
are inferior to our brethren in the Roman Catholic 
communion. I think their religious life is more 
deeply marked by reverence and awe. It is fre- 
quently suggested that such reverence is only a 
matter of posture, an empty formality, a marrowless 
rite. I will not have the interpretation. I am con- 
sidering a true and representative Roman Catholic, 
and I say that he has much to teach us in the matter 
of worthy and fruitful reverence. Go into a Roman 
Catholic church. Everywhere there are suggestions 
of the august and unspeakable. Every symbol is an 
entrance gate into a vista which awes the soul into 
adoration. Tokens and memorials of the Crucified 
are everyr^^here. The cross is ubiquitous. The wor- 
shipper bows low with an awed and silent wonder. 
The soul is reverently silent, and the body fashions 
itself to the mood of the spirit. But it is more than 
that : the posture of the body confirms the mood of the 
spirit. Perhaps we are not sufficiently attentive to 
these helpmeets to spiritual disposition. A bodily 
attitude does more than express a sentiment, it helps 
to create and foster it. It is even so with a common 
courtesy; the raising of the hat enriches the regards 



72 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

of the spirit. And so is it in reverence to the High- 
est. A bodily attitude will minister to the posture 
of the soul. Even our Lord did not despise the 
bodily helpmeet, and when He communed with His 
Eather He ^' fell on His knees." I urge that a little 
more care be given to this. There is a way of kneel- 
ing which is itself the beginning of prayer. Does 
this all seem rather sombre and gloomy, savouring 
more of the bondservant than the son, more of the 
cloister than the home? Ah! but I would wish to 
bring something of the cloister into the home, and 
the home itself will be lightened and transfigured. 
Let nobody think that true reverence makes for 
gloom and insipidity, and that it robs life of its 
buoyancy and freshness. Henry Drummond once 
went out alone into the high Alps. He was there in 
the early morning. The stupendous heights encom- 
passed him on every side. He was awed by their 
majesty. His soul was bowed in reverent worship. 
And then what happened? He broke out into loud 
and exuberant laughter! The succession was not 
accidental, it was the fruit of a hidden root. The 
man who begins with the reverent recognition of 
the holiness and majesty of God will rise into a 
buoyancy of spirit in which all the merry-making 
powers will have free course to be glorified. Our 
Lord's Prayer teaches us that before we can pass into 
the gracious liberty of forgiveness and conquest we 
must begin with the awed and reverent stoop : '^ Our 
Eather, which art in heaven, hallowed he Thy name/' 



SON AND HEIR 73 

In the heart of a laughing, exuberant^ and healthy 
sonship there is a quiet and retired retreat where the 
incense of adoration rises both night and day. 

Isow look again into the casket of this wealthy 
and comprehensive sonship. Here is the second 
jewel which I would like to display to you. Surely 
one of the primary elements in sonship is the priv- 
ilege of intimate communion with the Father. I 
was one of a party who visited Chatsworth the other 
day. We were allowed the privilege of going 
through the noble house. But our liberties were 
severely restricted. We were allowed to pass rapidly 
through what is called ^^the show rooms/^ but we 
were rigidly excluded from the ^' living room." In 
many places there were red cords stretched across 
inviting passages, and our progress was barred. If 
I had been a son of the house I could have passed 
into the living rooms, the place of sweet and sacred 
fellowships, the home of genial intercourse, where 
secrets pass from lip to lip, and unspoken senti- 
ments radiate from heart to heart. " Thou art no 
longer a bondservant, but a son! " Then I, too, 
am privileged to enjoy the fellowships of the living 
rooms, and no barrier blocks my way to the secret 
place. As a son I, too, am permitted to enter into 
a gracious intimacy with my God. I can indulge 
in confidences and share in the mutual secrets of the 
human and the Divine. Some time ago I heard an 
admiring father give a very rich and happy testi- 
mony to the relationship which existed between him 



74 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

and his son. He said^ '' He is my son and my 
friend ! '^ Is not that almost the Scriptural phrase, 
which embodies the noblest title conferred upon man, 
and which the Almighty used to describe His rela- 
tion to one of His own children, " Abraham, my 
friend '' ? And is it not the wonderful heritage de- 
scribed to us by Jesus Christ our Saviour, " No 
longer do I call you servants but friends, for all 
things that I have heard from My Father I have 
made known unto you." Such is the rare and secret 
intimacy to which we are invited by our Lord. 
Have we seized upon this privilege of sonship ? Are 
we with the undiscriminated crowd in the " show 
rooms " ; or are we abiding with the Father in the 
living room ? Are we enjoying an intimacy with the 
Lord, or have we only a kind of outside communion ? 
Do we share all our secrets with the Lord and do 
we listen to the whispered secrets from His lips? 
Is there the abolition of all unnecessary reserve, and 
in all things do we take our Lord into our confidence ? 
I have heard a business man say that when he goes 
down to his office in the morning, and before he 
opens his letters — nay, even with the unopened let- 
ters spread out before him — he " has a word with 
the Father ! '^ Has not the biography of Mr. Glad- 
stone revealed to us that he, too, had a similar way 
of sharing the intimate secrets of his life with the 
Lord ? He had " a word with his Father '' before 
he rose to speak in the House of Commons. He en- 
tered into the secret place before he appealed to the 



SON AND HEIR 75 

public eye. He consulted with the Almighty before 
he formed his cabinets. Such constant communion 
soon deepens into a wonderful intimacy. The re- 
stricting reserve passes out of the life. The un- 
necessary shyness wears away. The soul and the 
Father are one. 

And 80 we may regard it as a very prominent 
characteristic of sonship that it is endowed with 
large and wealthy liberty. But sonship is not only 
distinguished by liberty of communion in the secret 
place, but by an emancipation from many kinds 
of bondage and restriction with which the world is 
burdened and oppressed. Sonship is conspicuously 
and radiantly free. The sons of God ought to fas- 
cinate and win the world by the range and grandeur 
of their freedom. Where others are bound they 
must reveal themselves to be free. Is our freedom 
obtrusively prominent ? Are we revelling " in the 
glorious liberty of the children of God " ? The real 
son is free from the bondage of sin. His life is 
delivered from the haunting wail of sunless and 
hopeless dejection. The real son is free from the 
tyranny of self. He is not imprisoned by a small, 
exclusive, all-absorbing, egoistic, enslaving self. He 
has '' a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and 
sympathise.'' The real son is free from the en- 
slavement of the crowd. He is not daunted 
by the presence of the great and threatening 
multitude. God's sons are free and bold and stand 
alone ! 



76 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

" They are slaves who dare not be 
In the right with two or three." 

Slaves indeed ! '' But now thou art no longer a 
bondservant, but a son/' and because a son thou art 
free to defy the crowd and be alone ! One with God 
is in the majority. And the real son is free from 
the fear of death. His life moves on, not to expected 
defeat but to ultimate triumph. The approaching 
shadow does not mark a terminus, but a point of 
transition into the larger and immortal life. In all 
these ways the son of the Almighty is "called unto 
liberty.'' Such is sonship, marked by reverence, 
distinguished by intimacy, and glorious in its liberty. 
By our lives do we placard this sonship before our 
fellows ? By our very manner of life does this son- 
ship flame before the world ? Do we move about like 
those who constantly realise the Presence of the 
Infinite? Is every spot a piece of holy ground? 
Are we sharing confidences with the Father? Has 
the burden of the oppressor been loosed from our 
backs, and are we standing erect in joyful freedom ? 
Then are we sons, and sons indeed ! " Now thou 
art ... a son ! " '' Behold what manner of love 
the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be 
called the sons of God." 

'' And if a son then an heir." We are not disin- 
herited or disowned. The recovery of our sonship is 
accompanied by the restoration of our lost lands. 
The coming to God is the regaining of our estate. 
We are not only sons, but heirs. And our estates 



SON AND HEIR 77 

are not all beyond the river we call death. That is 
where we make an impoverishing mistake. We are 
not only heirs of " great expectations " but of great 
possessions. Superlatively rich are our expectations, 
but we have more than a competency by the way. 
Devonshire is a peculiarly rich and fruitful county, 
but it overflows into Somersetshire, and we are in 
the enjoyment of some of the glory before we reach 
the coveted spot. And so it is of heaven and ulti- 
mate glory. 

" There is a land of pure delight. 
Where saints immortal reign. 
Infinite day excludes the night. 
And pleasures banish pain." 

But the glory overflows ! There is something of the 
coveted country even in the highway of time. 

*'The hill of Zion yields 

A thousand sacred sweets. 
Before we reach the heavenly fields 
Or walk the golden streets." 

Expectancy? Yes. But again let me say we have 
a foretaste on the road. Do we look like it ? Is our 
stride significant of men who have entered upon a 
large estate ? Do we ever compel the alien world to 
say of us, '' They look as though they were very well 
off! '' That is the witness we ought to compel, and 
if our eyes were open, and our hearts were active, 
we should hear the witness on every side. Look at 



78 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

this : " Blessed are the meek^ for they shall inherit 
the earth." There is an inheritance for the sons of 
God, and surely an inheritance vast enough! Are 
we in possession of the estate ? We may not own a 
square yard and yet the earth may be ours. Think 
of Jesus as He moved about in the ways of Galilee. 
Not a square foot could He call His own. But 
those snowy heights in the far north, those green 
hillsides at home, those juicy vineyards, those fair 
lilies, those busy birds, that cool river, the ever- 
changing lake — they were all His ! In His meekness 
He had " inherited the earth." Are we in possession 
of the estate ? " Having nothing," we may yet 
'^ possess all things " ! How is it, for instance, with 
the night sky ? Have we any sense of sonship as we 
gaze upon it, and do we regard it as a part of our 
inheritance? When we contemplate some spacious 
panorama from an Alpine height, or from the hills of 
our own neighbourhood, do we thrill in the joy of 
possession, in the privileged sharing in the sonship 
of our God? We are sons and heirs, and all the 
real beauty and the glory of the earth belong to 
those who are the friends and companions of the 
Lord. 

And here is another portion of our estate. Let us 
listen, as Paul in one sentence defines it. " Ye are 
my joy and crown." Where was he gathering those 
delights? He had found them in other people's 
well-being, in the triumph of his fellow-men. He 
had discovered the well of unpolluted joy in another 



SON AND HEIR 79 

man's success. Have we found it ? It is to be 
found in our estate. " With joy shall ye draw 
water out of the wells of salvation." Some of these 
wells are in your brother, you must find them in his 
conquests and in his rewards. " All things are 
yours." Have we realised our inheritance ? Let us 
lift the thought still higher. Let us lift our heirship 
up into the light of the burning bliss. We are 
" heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ ! " That 
is wonderful and overwhelming! We are heirs to 
the Lord's inheritance ; His possessions are ours ; we 
may sit with Him in the heavenly places. We may 
inherit His strength, His joy, His peace, His tri- 
umph. We are joint heirs with Him in all the 
spiritual satisfactions that came to Him as He dwelt 
in the ways of men. And what did He inherit in 
the land of glory ? " Xor pen nor tongue can tell." 
^' Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it 
entered into the heart of man to conceive the things 
which God hath prepared for them that love Him." 
And we are the joint-heirs to it all ! Have we be- 
gun even to entertain these great realities in our con- 
sciousness ? We are the sons and heirs ; are we 
worthy of the name? Would the w^orld know it? 
Let us enter into a deeper consecration. Let us seek 
a closer sonship. Let us enter a little further into 
our estate. Let us move about with an exalted and 
hallowed and confident spirit, as those who are heirs 
to the promises, and who even now have inherited 
everlasting life. 



VI 
HIS MANY CROWNS 

" On His head were many crowns." — ^Rev. xix. 12, 

" Many crowns ! '' A sceptred, sovereign Lord, 
ruling with majestic sway! Such is the awe-in- 
spiring, love-constraining figure unveiled in the New 
Testament Scripture. Not one of " the sceptred 
dead '' who '' rule our spirits from their ums/^ Not 
the might of a tender reminiscence; not a vital im- 
pulse from a dead personality; not a slowly but 
surely expiring force, losing itself in the new thought 
and energies of the time; not a fading sentiment 
loitering about an unlocated grave. No, a living 
monarch, exercising conscious, intelligent, purpose- 
ful rule. The New Testament Christ is a vast and 
glorious Personage, planning and accomplishing vast 
and glorious ends. He dominates everything, not as 
some swelling wave dominates the ripples that break 
upon the shore, nor as the Matterhorn dominates 
the smaller heights around her, but as the sun dom- 
inates and warms and illumines the earth. 

" Many crowns.'' The multiplying word sug- 
gests the comprehensiveness of the sovereignty, the 
riches of the glory of His dominion. Now the 
wealth of any sovereignty is proportioned to its com- 

80 



HIS MANY CROWNS 81 

prehension. The glory of any rule is gathered from 
the diversity of the elements which move beneath its 
rule in co-operative obedience. A monarchy is no 
richer than the union that lies behind it. I suppose 
that the Russian monarchy carries the poorest of 
European crowns. The German crown was im- 
mensely enriched by Bismarck in the unifying and 
solidifying of many states and peoples. The crown 
of the United Kingdom will possess a more brilliant 
lustre when the kingdom is really united, when the 
Irish people have dropped their stolid aloofness and 
resentment^ and become gladly accordant in a com- 
mon and willing obedience. The lustre of the Im- 
perial crown is borrowed from the radiance of im- 
perial unity. A disaflPected India dulls our diadem, 
and the sovereign glory is impaired. So I repeat it, 
coronal majesty is dependent upon the wealth of 
unity that lies behind it. And I lift the reasoning 
up to the coronal glory of King Jesus. It is in the 
work of union, of reunion, which lies behind it, 
that we discover the riches of the sovereignty of 
Christ. The splendour of His sovereignty is to be 
sought in divisions healed, in alienations ended, in 
resentments changed into good will, in hard antip- 
athies changed into gracious sympathies, in the 
filling up of gulfs, in the annihilation of distance, 
and in the creation and fostering of all holy intimacy 
and union. He was to be Sovereign, said the 
prophet, because He was to be '' the repairer of the 
breach," ending discord, and creating harmony. And 



82 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

on His head are to be " many crowns! '' His unify- 
ing ministry is to be glorious, and, therefore, He is 
to be " King of kings, and Lord of lords," and His 
sovereignty is to shine with a splendour which will 
never be quenched in eclipse and night. I want, 
therefore, to look behind the sovereignty to the unify- 
ing work which gives it light and glory. 

First of all, it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus 
Christ that man is united to God. The Bible speaks 
of deep and terrible alienations. " Your sins have 
separated between you and your God." That is the 
teaching of the Scriptures, a teaching confirmed by 
the witness of individual knowledge and experience. 
Man is sundered from the highest, and sin has done 
it! That is the simple statement of condition, and 
that is the simple explanation. I know that there 
are dark abysses of mystery in the apparent sim- 
plicity, and we have no lead-lines to fathom the 
deeps. But here is the experimental end of the 
mystery, here is the twilight before it darkens into 
night: we know that sin is always the minister 
of division, and sin is always personal, and in- 
volves individual obligation. We know that sin de- 
stroys the highest relationships. We know that the 
atmosphere of sin corrodes all the fairest intimacies 
and all the finest spiritual powers. We know that 
sin withdraws the soul into an ever-dwindling circle, 
and separates it from God and from the best in man. 
We know that the " wages of sin " is division, aliena- 
tion, destruction of correspondence, death ! That is 



HIS MANY CROWNS 83 

the teaching of the Scriptures, and every man may 
find the confirmatory seal to the teaching in the 
witness of his own heart. 

Now, let me look for the unifying ministry which 
gives the brightness to our Saviour's radiant crown. 
If He reigns it is to unite. " Ye that once were far 
off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." We may 
explain it as we may — I will not now disturb the 
argument by presenting any particular theory. Un- 
less we reject the entire Christian Scriptures, unless 
we drain away the very life-blood of the New Testa- 
ment message, we must accept the teaching that in 
Bome altogether unique and solitary way Jesus Christ 
is the sole medium and minister of re-union between 
sin-sundered man and the holy God. Present what 
divergence of theory we may, all theories which draw 
their light and significance from the New Testament 
will find a convergence here — that if sin-bruised and 
sin-destroyed man is to be brought to the fulness and 
glory of the life of God, Jesus Christ has got to do 
it. Take that out of the New Testament, throw it 
away, and we leave flesh without blood, letter with- 
out spirit, words without a gospel, an ideal of re- 
form without the power of salvation. '' Ye that 
once were far off are made nigh by the blood of 
Christ." He unites men to God by revelation, by 
the gift of Divine light; and the reign of the night 
is ended. He unites men to God by redemption, by 
the gift of Divine life; and the reign of death is 
ended. He unites men to God by inspiration, by the 



84^ 



THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



gift of Divine power; and the reign of infirmity is 
ended. It is out of this glorious ministry of reunion 
that there emerges the splendour of His sovereignty 
and the lustre of His crown. And, therefore, we are 
told of '' a multitude whom no man can number/' 
standing before the throne, '^ clothed with white 
robes, and palms in their hands.'' " And these are 
they that came out of great tribulation, and have 
washed their robes and made them white in the 
blood of the Lamb." And those glistening robes of 
those redeemed and transfigured souls send their 
sheen into the Saviour's diadem, and light up the 
jewels of His eternal crown. 

What other unity lies behind the sovereignty? 
It is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that man is to 
become united to man. If coronal majesty finds its 
glory in a background of harmony and union, then 
this is to be one of the coronal glories of our Lord. 
I freely confess thaft I am alive to the cynical com- 
ment which is made upon this claim by the distracted 
aspects of our modern life. The Unifier of man and 
man! and deriving His glory from the unity! 
Then, surely. He has but a thin and featureless 
sovereignty, a dull and unillustrious crown! Why, 
every new human discovery is first of all regarded 
as a minister of alienation and strife, and looms 
before the eyes of men as a menace and a frown! 
The aeroplane is a gigantic bird of ill-omen, a 
mechanical hawk which will hover about the abodes 
of men as an engine of disaster and death. '^ The 



HIS MANY CROWNS 86 

Unifier of man and man! The King of brother- 
hoods ! What then, in this twentieth century, is 
the range of His territory and the sweep of His 
dominion? Here, there, and everywhere, upon the 
surface of human affairs there are bitter pools, circles 
of vicious ferment, hotbeds of jealousy and suspi- 
cion, the breeding-grounds of alienation and strife/' 
Thus speaks the cynic, and I see it all, and know it 
all, and in spite of all I am an optimist ! Thank God 
the soldiery of the world is not the final expression of 
power ; nor will armaments finally hinder the growth 
of a dominant humanity among the children of men. 
All over the world subtle and invincible ties are being 
woven between people and people, gracious intimacies 
and fellowships, bonds of brotherhood, the strength 
and brightness of which will one day put the night- 
birds of war to final flight. These fraternal threads 
of union, weaving a solid compact understanding 
and good will, and never so operative as they are 
to-day, make no noise, and are apt to be discounted 
and ignored by those whose ears are only attuned 
to the clamour of war. But there the threads are, 
and the weaver is Christ ! I make bold to say that 
even in the relationships between Britain and Grer- 
many, and in spite of all the wicked instigations 
to feverish jealousy and strife, the quiet ties of 
friendship, the commerce of mutual respect and 
good will, the beating of kindred hearts with a 
common faith, were never so strong and abounding 
as they are to-day. The people are drawing to- 



86 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

gether. I am a believer in the strength of these 
invisible filaments, these moral and spiritual inti- 
macies which are independent of race and clime ; and 
I believe that, in a measure which not all of us 
realise, these correspondences are being created to- 
day. Yes, the peoples are drawing together, and 
they are being drawn by the Lord of the peoples, who 
when on earth was a Son of the people, the Man 
of Nazareth, the Son of Man, the Son of God* 

*' Peoples and realms of every tongue 
Dwell on His name with sweetest song.'* 

^' After this I beheld, and lo ! a great multitude 
which no man can number of all peoples and kindreds 
and tribes and tongues, standing before the throne.'^ 
The coronal majesty of King Jesus shall derive some 
of its glory from the brotherhood of the race for 
which He died. 

And, lastly, it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus 
Christ that man and nature come into union, and He 
claims all the ministries by which the union is made. 
It is the purpose of the Lord that man shall live in 
closest communion with the natural world, reading 
His will in her order. His mind in her secrets, His 
truth in her symbols, finding the material house to 
be the house of God and a gate of heaven. " The 
whole earth is full of His glory,'' and He who is 
the Lord of glory, and " in whom all things consist,'' 
and who is the life and light of men, is Himself 
the minister of revelation even in the domain of 



HIS MANY CROWNS 87 

the natural world. And, therefore, in the shining 
sovereignty of Christ are to be found all the min- 
istries bv which men discern the invisible secrets 
of this visible world. And, therefore, the crown of 
poetry is one of the crowns of the Lord. Whenever 
in nature the opaque becomes the transparent, when- 
ever the tangible discloses the intangible, whenever 
the material object becomes thin as a bridal veil and 
men discern a face, the uniting minister is the Christ 
of God. And therefore, also, the crown of art is 
one of the crowns of the Lord. It has been said 
that painting and sculpture are gymnastics of the 
eye, and so they are; they are gracious disciplines 
to train the eye to discern for itself the finer splen- 
dour of colour and the nobler expressions of form 
in the natural world. And whatever unveils to the 
eye of man a loveliness hitherto concealed, some 
chaste and chastening beauty of form or hue, is 
itself a means of grace, and is, therefore, gracious, 
and can have but one source, even the grace of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. And, therefore, also the crown 
of science is one of the crowns of the Lord. He 
who is the truth can never be divorced from any 
form of truth. Jfo ray of light travels in a do- 
minion alien to the realms of the King. Discovery 
is only the human side of the Divine revelation. 
A transcribed law is a deciphered thought of the 
Lord. Every liberated secret is an unfolding of 
the unexplorable riches of Christ. 

These, then, are some of the crowns of the King. 



88 



THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



Behind His sovereignty are unifying ministries of 
unutterable grandeur. By Him shall-m^n Be united 
to God. By Him shall man be united to man. By 
Him shall man be united to the mystic and signifi- 
cant presences of this natural world. His are the 
crowns of science and poetry and art, to Him belongs 
every ministry that leads men into the secrets of 
the Divine. ^^ On His head are many crowns ! ^^ 



VII 

THE HALLOWING OF THE OUTER 
COURTS 

" His train filled the temple." — Is. vi. 1. 

The prophet had lost a hero and found his Lord. 
'^ In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord.'^ 
He had anticipated that when the good King Uzziah 
died the linch-pin would be removed^ and the car of 
the nation's life would topple over into confusion and 
disaster. All Isaiah's hopes were centred in this 
radical and aggressively righteous monarch, and he 
feared for the state when its sovereign should be 
taken. He anticipated chaos, and in place of chaos 
there emerged the Lord of Order! He found that 
in the days of his hero-worship he had been living in 
comparative twilight, the real Luminary had been 
partially obscured, there had been an eclipse of the 
Sun ; and now, with the passing of Uzziah the eclipse 
had ended, and the Presence of the Lord blazed out 
in unexpected glory ! " In the year that King 
Uzziah died I saw the Lord." It had seemed to the 
foreboding fears of the depressed youth as though 
the very existence of the kingdom was involved in 
the continued reign of the king. If he goes — what 
then ? A crisis was assured ! And yet in place of 
the crisis came God, and the effulgent glory was 

89 



90 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

bewildering. Succeeding generations of men have 
shared these pessimistic fears. We have riveted our 
gaze upon the incidental until the incidental has 
become the essential, and we have feared the wither- 
ing blast of death. " What will Israel do when 
Uzziah is taken? " " What will Methodism do when 
John Wesley is removed ? '' '' What will the Salva- 
tion Army do when anything happens to its Gen- 
eral ? " '' What will this or that church do when 
bereft of its minister ? '' And the long-feared crisis 
has come, but instead of being left to the hopeless, 
clammy darkness of the grave, we have gazed upon 
the dazzling glories of a forgotten heaven! The 
transient pomp and splendour died, and their passing 
removed the veil from the face of the Eternal, and 
we saw the Lord. "In the year that King Uzziah 
died I saw the Lord." He anticipated an end, he 
found a new beginning. 

But it was not only that Isaiah had an unexpected 
vision of God, it was the unique character of the 
vision which impressed and empowered him. Where 
does the wonder of the prophet culminate ? "' I saw 
the Lord, sitting upon a throne ! " That was not the 
unfamiliar sight, and not there did the prophet's 
wonder gather. '' High and lifted up! " A terrible 
sublimity, like some towering and awe-inspiring 
Alpine height ! Yet not there was concentrated the 
supreme surprise. " And his train filled the tern- 
pie ! '' That was the marvel which made the 
prophet's heart stand still. He was not a stranger 



HALLOWING OF THE OUTER COURTS 91 

to the conception of the throne, or of the lonely and 
snow-white exaltation, but this vision of the train 
that " filled the temple ^' was altogether foreign to 
his thought. We must remember that in all these 
temple arrangements of the olden days there were 
different grades and varying degrees of sanctity. 
Even in the time of our Lord there were divisions, 
separating the holy and the profane, beginning at 
the outer courts, where the foot of the Gentile might 
tread, but beyond which he was not permitted to 
pass, on penalty of death, on to the veiled and silent 
chamber where the awful Presence dwelt between 
the cherubim. And there was the same gradient 
in the thought of the young Isaiah, There were 
divisions in his temple, separating the different de- 
grees of sanctity, ranging from the much-diluted 
holiness of the remote circumference to the clean and 
quenchless flame of the sacred Presence. And now 
comes this strange and all-convulsing vision : '' His 
train filled the temple,'' filled it, every section of it, 
every corner of it, to the furthest and outermost wall. 
'^ The posts of the thresholds," not merely the cur- 
tains of the inner shrine, " the posts of the thresh- 
olds moved at the voice of him that cried, and the 
house was filled with smoke.'' That is the word 
which expresses the supreme wonder of this great 
inaugural vision. " His train filled the temple ! " 
*' The house was filled with smoke." The garments 
of the Almighty swept an unsuspected area. His robe 
impartially carpeted the entire pile, there was not a 



92 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

single inch that was exempt from the touch of His 
enveloping Presence. " His train filled the temple.'^ 
What, then, had the crisis brought to this young hero- 
worshipper who had been so fearful of the passing 
of his noble king? It had brought to him a larger 
conception of God, a filling-out conception of God, 
a full-tide conception, filling every nook and creek 
and bay in the manifold and far-stretching shore of 
human life. 

Now, the most important crises in a man's life are 
related to the growth or impoverishment of his con- 
ception of God. It is momentous when some area 
in the wide circle of his life is unexpectedly dis- 
covered to be the dwelling-place of God. Robinson 
Crusoe begins to track his desolate and presumably 
uninhabited island, and one day, on the sandy shore, 
he comes upon the print of a human foot. That 
footprint revolutionises his entire conception of the 
island, and all his plans and expedients are trans- 
figured. And so the soul, moving over some area of 
its activities which has never been related to God, 
and over which God has never been assumed to 
exercise a living and immediate authority, one day 
unexpectedly discovers His footprints upon this par- 
ticular tract of the sands of time, and the whole 
of the spiritual outlook is transformed. '' Surely, 
the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.'' '^ This, 
too, is none other than the house of God, and the 
gate of heaven." I say it is a momentous crisis in 
the history of the soul when its conception of the 



HALLOWING OF THE OUTER COURTS 93 

Lord's Presence and authority covers unfamiliar and 
unsuspected fields. It is a high birthday for the 
soul when the soul discovers that the Lord is on the 
other side of the barrier^ and that His train fills the 
temple. 

Now, some of the great soul-crises can be more 
particularly defined. There are certain familiar ex- 
periences, enlarging and enriching, which mark the 
pilgrimage of every man's thought as he moves for- 
ward in the life divine. They have this common 
characteristic, that each is concerned with the reclam- 
ation of some province which has hitherto been 
regarded as altogether unhallowed or only partially 
sanctified. Let me give two or three modern ex- 
amples. Here is a temple, with a dividing barrier, 
separating the pile into two sections, one of which 
is described as sacred and the other as secular or 
profane. That is a division which is made, not 
merely by the thoughtless and flippant, but even by 
many grave and serious minds. On one side the 
barrier they move softly and reverently, as though 
feeling the very breathings of the Almighty Pres- 
ence ; on the other side they step loudly and thought- 
lessly, as though the Almighty were absent. And 
then one day there comes one of the great crises I 
have named, and on the secular side of the barrier 
they see the trailing garments of the Lord, and they 
are filled with a surprise which ends in resurrection. 
For it is a birthday for the soul when we discover 
that the Lord occupies the whole of this divided 



94 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

house, and that His train fills the temple. You 
know how we divide this temple into the secular 
and sacred. We began with personages, and we said 
that all who stand on one side of the line shall be 
regarded as holy, and shall receive singular ordina- 
tion and anointing. And then we passed from the 
personages to their work, and we decided that the 
work of the anointed should be esteemed as holy, and 
that his calling should be regarded with reverent awe. 
And so the ministry was supposed to live on one side 
the barrier, engaged in its holy calling, while quite 
a lower significance was attached to the work that 
is effected on the other side. I have frequently 
heard reference to my own vocation as a '' sacred 
calling," but I have rarely, if ever, heard the same 
sober phrase applied to the work of the baker or tent- 
maker, or even to the work of the City Councillor 
or the members of the House of Commons. But the 
seamless robe of the Lord is on both sides the arti- 
ficial barrier, and all things on either side can be 
equally sacred and sanctified. Our Anglican breth- 
ren consecrate their graveyard, and they consecrate 
the bells that peal in their towers and spires; I do 
not disagree with it : it is a most impressive ministry ; 
I only say, go on with the consecration service until 
^' the very bells upon the horses are holiness unto 
the Lord." I have seen the trailing garment of the 
Lord in the chancel, at the altar, among the multi- 
tude in the nave, among the little group of lonely 
mourners as they stand at the new-made tomb, but I 



HALLOWING OF THE OUTER COURTS 95 

have also seen it in the open streets, among the 
common ways of men, at the mart, in the forge, 
at the common meal as well as at the sacramental 
feast. The sweeping garment is on the other side 
of the barrier, and the train fills the temple. It is 
a great day for a man when first he sees the train 
of the Almighty wrapping itself about his common 
work ! " Our fathers worshipped in this moun- 
tain!'^ This is our sacred place! ^^ Ye say that 
at Jerusalem is the place where men ought to wor- 
ship," but that is our secular place! And then the 
Lord opens the woman's eyes to the wonderful vision 
which makes Gerizim and Jerusalem one ! " Neither 
in this mountain '' in particular, '' nor at Jerusa- 
lem '' in particular, but anywhere, " in spirit and 
in truth ! '' And so the barrier is crossed, the sacred 
and the secular become one, the sweet incense rises 
in the outer courts, and the strain of the singing 
seraphim revives even those who stand at the thresh- 
old. We can go to our work as we go to our wor- 
ship, we can go to the polling-booth as we go to 
church, for " the Lord is high and lifted up, and 
His train fills the temple." 

Let me now mention another temple which our 
modern thought so frequently divides into sections 
of different degrees of sanctity, as the temple was 
divided in the days of old. It is the temple of the 
entirely personality, and one side of the barrier is 
called body, and the other is called spirit, and I 
cannot think they are commonly looked upon with the 



96 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

same venerable and awe-inspiring regard. It is 
great day for a man when the wonderful revelation 
breaks upon his eyes, that these two entities possess 
a common sanctity, that our division is unwise and 
impoverishing, and that His train fills the whole 
temple. In the olden days there was a school of 
thinkers who regarded matter as essentially evil, the 
very sphere and dwelling-place of evil, and therefore 
the body itself was esteemed as the very province 
of the devil. It was therefore further reasoned that 
to despise the body was to heap shame and contumely 
upon the devil, and that one of the holiest exercises 
was thus to treat the flesh with disdain and con- 
tempt. The body was a thing of the gutter, gutter- 
born, and destined to a gutter-death ! Therefore 
they neglected it, they bruised it, they refused to 
cleanse it, and they utterly deprived it of any atten- 
tion and adornment. So far as the body-part of the 
temple was concerned, the Lord was not in it! 
Js'ow we can see the force and relevancy of the 
Apostle's firm and vigorous teaching : ''^ Know ye not 
that your hody is the temple of the Holy Ghost ? '^ 
That word would come as a bewildering surprise! 
The Lord's temple does not end where the spirit 
ends; it includes the bodv too: and His train fills 
the temple ! " I beseech you, therefore, by the 
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living 
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your 
reasonable service." That veil in the temple has 
been rent in twain ! 



HALLOWING OF THE OUTER COURTS 97 

There is still yet another temple which we divide 
into discriminating sections much as the temple of 
old was divided. One side of the barrier is described 
as home, the other side as foreign, the one side as 
Jew, the other side as Gentile. And so the temple 
itself, rather than the partitioning veil, is too fre- 
quently rent in twain. It is a season of wonderful 
regeneration when first the train of the Almighty is 
seen to fill the entire temple, and the whole of the 
unworthily divided area is seen to be the familiar 
walking-ground of the Eternal God. To go out, I 
say, into the section regarded as foreign, and to 
behold the footprints of the Lord, to see that, even 
where home ends, the trailing garment of the Lord 
sweeps on, is a great birthday for the soul, a day of 
fertilising knowledge and of energising grace! To 
gaze upon other sects, foreign to our own, and to see 
common footprints in the varying roads; to gaze 
upon other nations, foreign to our own, and to see 
the mystic garment in their unfamiliar ways, to dis- 
cover that the train fills the entire temple, is to enter 
an experience only less momentous than our conver- 
sion, for it is a second conversion into the larger 
thought and love of God. " In Christ Jesus there is 
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither Jew 
nor Gentile, neither bond nor free." " His train 
filled the temple.'^ 

And as it is with all these unlawful distinctions, 
distinctions so frequently aggravated into antago- 
nisms, so it is with the alienated ministries of science 



98 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

and religion. They have been too commonly r( 
garded as though separated by an impassable barrier, 
on only one side of which there flamed the presence 
of the Lord. We have regarded the revelations of 
science as though they were the decrees of an alien 
power, and we have listened suspiciously to the story 
of the planet as though it were antagonistic to the 
story of grace. But now we are reaching a wiser 
synthesis. More and more clearly are we recognis- 
ing that the Lord's train fills the entire temple, and 
that on both sides the artificial barrier we have the 
revelation of the same mind. And so now we are 
watching science as she deciphers the rocks, and 
ransacks the treasures of the air, and unravels the 
history of planets, in the same reverent spirit in 
which we watch the learned saint disentangle the 
truth from the ancient word. His train fills the 
temple! One decree runs through the whole uni- 
verse, and the ultimate secret of Calvary will not be 
found in final conflict with the liberated secrets of 
the stars. 



VIII 
WHAT IS SIN? 

" wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of th© 
body of this death? I thank Grod through Jesus Christ our 
Lord! "—Rom. vii. 24, 25. 

A by no means incompetent judge has declared 
his OT^Ti conviction that this seventh chapter of 
Komans is " most certainly the most terrible tragedy 
in all literature, ancient or modern, sacred or pro- 
fane." " Set beside the seventh of the Romans/' 
he says, " all your so-called great tragedies — your 
Macbeths, your Hamlets, your Lears, your Othellos, 
are all but so many stage-plays; so much sound and 
fury, signifying next to nothing when set alongside 
this awful tragedy of sin. . . . The seventh of the 
Eomans should always be printed in letters of blood. 
Here are passions. Here are terror and pity. Here 
heaven and hell meet, as nowhere else in heaven or 
hell ; and that, too, for their last grapple together 
for the everlasting possession of that immortal soul, 
till you have a tragedy indeed ; beside which there 
is no other tragedy." 

Yes, that is just what this chapter is and does. It 
describes the supreme tragedy of the soul. It de- 
scribes the daily array of contending combatants 
even upon the plane of the sanctified life. To these 

09 



100 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

hostilities there is no truce; the apparent departure 
of the foe is only a feint for a subtler approach. 
The enemy is on the field when night lulls the 
senses to rest, he is on the field at the new awaking. 
'' To me, who would do good, evil is present/' a 
forceful, bewitching mesmerism, an almost stupefy- 
ing fascination! ^^ What I hate, I doT' ^^ The 
good which I would I do not; but the evil which I 
would not, that I do." '' O wretched man that I 
am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this 
death," out of the death-dealing grip of this tremen- 
dous and ubiquitous foe ? Such is the tragedy, and 
we have all experienced its horrors, for the battle 
and the battle-fields are only limited by the race. 
But not yet have we finished the verse. Up to this 
point the narrative of the chapter has raced along 
in heated, gasping, bewildered leaps, but the very 
next sentence comes like a sweet, restful morning 
after the convulsions of an awful night. " O 
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out 
of the body of this death ? " . . . '' I thank God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." So He gives His 
beloved rest and peace. 

And now let us come to the immediate matter of 
our meditation by asking this question, What is this 
sin which so inflames this narrative, and so tyran- 
nises the life ? What is sin ? I am not seeking for 
a mere theological definition, but for some clear, 
truthful, adequate, experimental conception of it. 
What is sin ? The place to ask the question, and to 



WHAT IS SIN? 101 

seek an answer to it, is not in the restrictive and 
perverting publicity of a debating society, but in the 
deep solitudes of one's own soul. The evidence 
which is requisite for a judgment will never be 
tabled in the open court of publicity, it must be 
sought amid all the reserves of the secret place. It 
cannot be discussed as a theological generality, an 
impersonal abstraction, removed from the colour and 
life and movement of the individual soul. There 
are many mathematical problems which can be dis- 
cussed in abstraction, far away from the hard reali- 
ties of common experience. iSTay, it has frequently 
been by the mystical highway of mathematical ab- 
stractions that we have marched to the discovery 
of material facts. The mathematician has discovered 
the existence of the comet long before it appeared 
to the astronomers. From the generality we got 
a particularity; by an abstraction we were led to a 
fact. But I do not think that is the order when we 
are investigating the nature of sin. In this realm 
I rather think the course is not from an idea to an 
experience, but from an experience to an idea. Be- 
fore half a dozen men can fruitfully discuss the 
theory of sin, it is essential that each man shall have 
investigated the facts of his own soul and examined 
the secret judgments of his own experience. The 
appeal is to Caesar, and in this relationship Caesar 
is the individual soul. 

What, then, has our hidden consciousness to say 
about it? Matthew Arnold declared that sin was 



102 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

" not a monster^ but an infirmity/' I will not dis- 
cuss that in vacuo. I merely ask, what has my soul 
to say about it ? Does my soul accept the ameliora- 
tive term, and feel itself secretly justified? If sin 
be only infirmity, there would be no sense of guilt and 
no harrowing consciousness of blame. A man who is 
born with imperfect physical sight is not responsible 
for his infirmity, nor is he conscious of any burden- 
some blame. But when I sin I am conscious of more 
than weakness; it is a happening that might have 
happened otherwise, and I know myself responsible 
for the choice. And so when I go into my soul 
where the sin has been wrought, and seek to label 
the sin by the plausible name of " infirmity,'' my 
soul rejects the plea in the consuming sense of its 
own shame. 

Nor do I fare any better when I am presented 
with the excuse of inherited temperament. I am 
told that I am the creature of heredity, and that I 
have inherited an unfavourable and overwhelming 
bias. I take that softening plea into my soul, where 
the wreckage occasioned by a violent passion is 
strewn all about, but my soul will have none of it, 
and spurns the explanation as futile and irrelevant. 
The extraordinary thing is that I can excuse another 
man because of his legacy of bad blood and jarring 
nerves, but I cannot excuse myself. Nor can the 
other man whom I extenuate find any self-extenua- 
tion in the same plea. If heredity were invincible 
we should know no guilt and experience no blame. 



WHAT IS SIN? 103 

But after every outburst of passion my soul knows 
it could have been otherwise, my judgment is against 
myself, I do not distribute the blame over my an- 
cestry, I make the indictment personal and imme- 
diate; ^^ my sin is ever before me." 

T^or do I fare any better with another suggestion, 
namely this, that sin is adequately explained by the 
invincibility of external circumstances, by the bru- 
tally terrific power of my environment. I confess I 
am very eager to throw this shield over many a 
brother, but it offers no defence to my own soul. I 
note the adversaries which surround my brother, like 
wolves bearing down on a fold, I mark the fierceness 
and suddenness of the attack, and I feel compelled 
to say, How could he have done anything else ? But 
again, the extraordinary thing is this, that my 
brother, in his own secret consciousness, cannot ac- 
cept the plea, and secretly rejects the excuse. He 
knows that the surrender was not inevitable, and that, 
to the very last moment, it was a possibility to have 
mastered the circumstances which led to his degrada- 
tion. Xo man is compelled to lie; and every man 
knows it. He can breast the blows of circumstance, 
and honour and keep the truth. I am not now 
concerned with what we say to one another, but with 
what we say in our secret selves, and I testify that 
in my own self-consciousness my sin never finds its 
explanation in any supposed inevitability in my sur- 
roundings. 

But let us go a step higher. It has been said 



104 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

that the essence of all sin is the making self the 
centre to which we subordinate all other beings and 
interests. I think there is much trnth in the state- 
ment^ and yet I think it is a very inadequate ex- 
planation. When I take the statement and examine 
it among the experiences of my own secret conscious- 
ness it does not give me satisfaction. There is more 
in sin than the statement includes, more than the 
exaltation of one's self and the subordination of one's 
brother. These may be and are the consequences of 
sin, but I do not think they constitute its essence. 
When I sin I am conscious of more than self and 
brother; in the wide, silent solitudes of my soul I 
am dimly conscious of a vaster Presence still. I 
may not be able to define it, but its existence is surely 
recognised. When I retire into this secret conscious- 
ness I feel I cannot express sin in terms of self and 
brother, but only in terms of self and brother 
and God. There are m^ore circles and centres 
than two ; there is a third circle, and the centre of 
this circle I cannot forget or ignore. When Judas 
betrayed the IN'azarene, could the sin be all expressed 
in terms of Judas and ISTazarene; or was there a 
third Factor present, and was it the mysterious 
Third which haunted him with awful dread, and 
which drove him headlong to " the field of blood " ? 
In the great drama of " The Tempest," Alonzo 
foully rids himself of Prospero, and usurps his place 
and power; could the sin be adequately expressed in 
terms of self and brother, or is a third included, 



WHAT IS SIN? 105 

and is it to the third we owe the wail of after 
days? 

" 0, it is monstrous ! monstrous ! 
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it; 
The winds did sing it to me: and the thunder, 
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced 
The name of Prosper! " 

'^^ Th^ voice of the great Eternal spake in that 
mighty tone." When I closely interrogate my own 
secret consciousness, I find this threefold circle in 
every sin. 

And further, therefore, I cannot altogether agree 
with the statement that ^^ sin is the deprivation of 
God." " Deprivation " is, perhaps, a word unfortu- 
nately chosen. The Scriptures use another and a 
better word. " Tour sins have separated between 
you and your God." Yes, but the separation is not 
the sin, it is the consequence of the sin. When I 
sin God is not away, I am too powerfully conscious 
that He is there. I hear His voice, I deliberately 
go against it. I have gone against it when it rang 
out like a loud alarm-bell in the dead of night! 
What, then, is sin? 

What say the Scriptures ? Jesus had compara- 
tively little to say about sin as sin. Enough had 
been said, and enough was known. He came to re- 
move it, not to describe it. But this much is taught, 
these two things at any rate, and I think they are 
both confirmed in the secret consciousness of the 



106 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

individual life; firstly, sin is a voluntary breaking 
away from the Divine will, a conscious and deliber- 
ate violation of the Divine order; and, secondly, sin 
results in a certain distortion of the life, a certain 
twist in our relationship to the Highest, which evi- 
dences itself in the disturbing and maiming sense 
of guilt. A violation and a distortion ! Such is the 
teaching of the Scriptures, and such are the findings 
of my own experience. I am prepared, therefore, 
to accept these words of a great experimental thinker, 
that sin is " the God-resisting disposition, in virtue 
of which man, in self-sufficiency and pride, opposes 
himself to God, and withdraws himself from the 
spirit of Divine life and love." That satisfies my 
consciousness, as indeed it explains my experience. 
Well, now, how shall we deal with it ? '^ Who 
shall deliver us out of this body of death ? " Mat- 
thew Arnold tells us that it is ^^ an infirmity to be 
got rid of," but he omits to tell us how. He cer- 
tainly says that " thinking about sin beyond what is 
indispensable for the firm effort to get rid of it is a 
waste of energy and a waste of time." I truly be- 
lieve in the sanity of the warning conveyed in this 
counsel ; but, ah, me ! that bit about " the firm effort 
to get rid of it " appears to mock at my desire. It 
seems like telling one of our electric cars, whose 
trolley-pole is all awry, to make " firm effort " to 
get along ! Just what Matthew Arnold counsels me 
to do I am unable to do. What is this " firm effort " 
by which I am to get rid of sin, and its attending 



WHAT IS SIN? 107 

distortion of guilt ? Another counsellor comes to my 
side with the answer, get rid of it ^^ by healthy de- 
velopments in favourable conditions.'' Yes, but 
again, what are the '' favourable conditions " in 
which the " healthy development " will be inevitable ? 
Mark you, it cannot be done by education. Paul 
was an educated man, and of a very fine order, but 
he needed something far beyond what could be pro- 
vided by the schools. Let us make no mistake about 
it, we are not going to purge our land of sin by a 
more efficient system of education. Why, our public 
schools are possible cesspools. There is not a school- 
master or schoolmistress anywhere who does not pain- 
fully realise how comparatively impotent is a school 
system to keep life pure and sweet. The discipline 
of a school can compel an external order; it cannot 
control the riot that may be raging within. Nor is 
the curriculum fitted to accomplish much more than 
the discipline; at any rate, let us not unduly build 
upon the influence of our schools in purifying and 
directing the energies of our youth, and in establish- 
ing them in a sweet and wholesome life. Nor are we 
going to do it by the creation of garden cities and the 
transfiguration of men's material surroundings. Let 
me not be misunderstood ; not for one moment would 
I wish it to be inferred that I disparage these help- 
ful ministries to the creation of a larger and healthier 
life. It is the knowledge of their worth which has 
driven me to seek to bring into one of the dingiest 
centres of a great city something of the light and 



108 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

colour and warmth of finer fellowships. But I want 
to labour under no misapprehension. We may, by a 
more favourable environment, diminish crime and 
at the same time only change the accent of sin. 
When a man ceases to be a drunkard he does not 
necessarily become a saint. Police statistics may be 
reliable guides as to the crime of a city, but they are 
no criterion of its moral and spiritual health. We 
may diminish the city's crime, and at the same time 
utterly fail to diminish the city's sin. Crime is just 
the public obtrusiveness of sin; we may stop the 
obtrusion, and the crime has gone, but the sin itself 
may hide beneath the skin. We may remove the 
eruption, and leave the blood defiled. There may be 
no drunkard in a city, but sin may abound. No, the 
merely fine environment will leave the essential virus 
untouched, and will not deliver us from the bondage 
and wretchedness of indwelling sin. 

Nor do I think that altruistic service will give us 
the desired emancipation. I have known men and 
women who have gone out to serve their fellows, and 
in the service their hearts have been dark and cold 
as a tomb, haunted by ghostly and disturbing pres- 
ences. Men go on to public bodies, and surrender 
their strength to the common weal, but this in itself 
does not bring the freedom they seek. All these are 
comparatively favourable conditions, but taken alto- 
gether, and alone, they will not deliver the life from 
the virus of sin. Then, " O wretched man that I 
am, who shall deliver me out of this body of death ? 



WHAT IS SIN? 109 

I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." I 
bring you to that — the reality of sin, and the reality 
of a personal Saviour. '' Through Jesus Christ." 
The deliverance can be effected by a personal cove- 
nant, by the union of two lives, by the mutual surren- 
der of your life and of the life of the Prince of 
Glory, the now exalted Christ of God. Jesus Christ, 
who liberated the palsied, who freed the Magdalene, 
is alive, exercising universal sway, and can come 
into vital, revitalising, emancipating relationship 
with every child of the race. On His side the sur- 
render is made ; ^' for their sakes I sanctify Myself," 
and when on our side the surrender is made, and the 
spiritual union is consummated, this is the joyful 
experience in the sweet consciousness of a redeemed 
life: 

"He breaks the power of cancelled sin. 
He sets the prisoner free." 



IX 
A REGAL CONSCIOUSNESS 

" Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into 
His hands, and that He was come from God and went to Grod; 
He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments: and took 
a towel, and girded Himself." — John xiii. 3, 4. 

What an amazing succession is here revealed! 
We ascend height upon height, as though we were 
climbing some towering Alpine range, and just as 
we reach the shining culmination we seem to pass 
into sheerest commonplace ! The sequence appears 
altogether unworthy of its antecedents. We are 
taken along a road, which abounds in arresting and 
awful surprises, to a most ordinary and homely issue. 
^^ Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things 
into His hands, and that He was come from God 
and went to God," having this superlative conscious- 
ness, ^' knowing '' these things, what will He do ? — 
" He riseth from supper, and laid aside His gar- 
ments ; and took a towel, and girded Himself . . . 
and began to wash the disciples' feet." The succes- 
sion almost disappoints us, for it would appear as 
if the tame conclusion does not justify the majestic 
premises. Such violence would never be the device 
of fiction; fiction would have fashioned a more con- 
genial consummation. It must be born of the stern 
and inevitable logic of life. Jesus of Nazareth, 

110 



A REGAL CONSCIOUSNESS 111 

possessed by this unique and spacious consciousness, 
put on the apron of the slave, and instinctively ad- 
dressed Himself to menial service. 

Now, in this succession I discern a very vital 
principle. We need something of these antecedents 
if we would have something of these consequents. 
A big consciousness is the primary requisite for 
chaste and delicate service. It is the small artist 
who always pines for big canvas. Turner could put 
the infinite into a square inch. The really big man 
can be at home in small spaces; the man of small 
make-up wants nothing less than the hoardings! If 
you want fine detail in anything you require a full 
man to produce it. Passion is needed to carve a 
cherry stone. A poet of vast and commanding 
consciousness can spend a whole day fashioning the 
vowel-music of a single line. We need great minds 
for lace-like ministries. If we want fine manners 
we must make fine men. Tender graces belong to 
men whose being is the incarnation of grace. And, 
therefore, I am proclaiming that the order of this 
narrative is not an accidental coincidence, but a vital 
and blood-linked succession. The roomiest conscious- 
ness expresses itself in the finest and loveliest serv- 
ices. '^ Jesus knowing that the Father had given all 
things into His hands, and that He was come from 
God and went to God: He riseth from supper,'^ and 
discharged the humble duties of a slave. 

And now we are ready for an inference. The 
only really effective way to foster and enrich mutual 



112 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

ministries among men is to seek the enlargement of 
their consciousness. If we would have finer '' doing '^ 
we must seek larger " knowing/' A man's de- 
meanour among his fellows is determined by the 
range of his own mystic relationships. What is the 
scope and quality of his consciousness? How does 
he conceive his lineage and his kinships? In the 
secret sanctuary of his own soul, with whom does he 
claim communion ? Answer me these questions, and 
I can infer all the rest. If he be a man of dwarfed 
and narrow consciousness the external hospitalities 
will be artificial or denied. Take the disciples as 
they stand unveiled to us in this very chapter. The 
doors of their consciousness are thrown open, and 
we are permitted to enter into their secret place. 
And what do we find? No far-stretching vistas of 
noble lineage and descent, but a mean prison of 
petty self-conceit, an ambition which never wings 
its way to a distant horizon. They are men of a 
tiny consciousness, and so they each and all refuse 
the servant's task. We require a consciousness so 
extensive and glorious that, like a full and brimming 
spring-tide, easily filling every creek and crevice 
along the varied shore-line, shall spontaneously enter 
into every trifling gap of human need and ministry, 
and fill and glorify it. '' Jesus knowing " — there 
you have the brimming, tidal consciousness — " began 
to wash the disciples' feet " — and there you have the 
oceanic fulness in the homely creek. Expand the 
consciousness, and you will fill the creeks. 



A REGAL CONSCIOUSNESS 113 

Now, it is the mission of Christianity to create 
this vast and expanded consciousness. How does 
the Christian religion find us ? It finds us possessed 
of a consciousness which is little and belittling. 
We have lost our real and vitalising dignity, and 
what we commonly call our dignity is only a poor 
little mushroom growth which breeds upon the hot- 
bed of feverish vanity and pride. False dignity has 
its shallow roots in a rubbish-heap : true dignity sucks 
its nutriment from the Infinite. But we may lose 
the finer dignity. " This, my son, is dead ! '' Dead 
to what ? Dead to his own sonship : it is the atrophy 
of a relationship. '' This, my son, is dead ! ^' That 
particular kinship is as if it were not; there is no 
communion ; it is as if the wire between the provin- 
cial centre and the metropolis were cut or impaired, 
and all communication has ceased. " This, my son, 
is dead ^' ; the wire between father and son is not 
worked, the kinship is not recognised, the life has 
become utterly and entirely provincial, of the earth, 
earthy, and the spiritual metropolis is ignored. The 
noble lineage is neglected, and human life toys with 
the slender tinsel of smaller dignities which make no 
blood contribution its service. " This, my son, was 
dead, and is alive again ! " That is the conscious 
recovery of the lost lineage, and the birth-movement 
of a new life. " When he was come to himself ! " 
He had been far away from himself, enmeshed in 
petty and unclean communions which had drained 
away his nobler sentiments. But ^' when he was 



114 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

come to ihiinself '' — in one still and pregnant hour, 
he faced his very self, and piercingly cross-examined 
it — " Who art thou ? Thou art here among the 
swine, famished and disquieted, and thou wouldst 
fain appease thy cravings with the husks that the 
swine do eat! But who art thou? What is thy 
lineage? Whose blood runs in thy veins? Wert 
thou purposed for this condition and for this com- 
panionship ? Who art thou ? " And, in response to 
this recovering quest, the long-ebbed tide of regal 
consciousness began to flow again, and the powers 
of a long neglected lineage were restored. And the 
prodigal^ ^^ knowing '' his pedigree, ^' knowing '' his 
father^s afl9.uence and goodness, and '' knowing '^ his 
own poverty and shame, said to himself, '' I will 
arise, and go to my father ! '' And in that recovered 
lineage the atrophied relationship was revitalised, 
communion between the metropolis and the provinces 
became operative again, spiritual commerce and in- 
spiration were brought from afar, and the life re- 
gained its wealthy and protective dignity. The 
dwarfed and withered consciousness recovered the 
vast and healthful energies which were his by right 
of noble birth. You have it all, in forceful analogy, 
in Shakespeare's story of the lapse and recovery of 
Prince Hal. When Prince Hal forgot his kingly 
lineage, and lived and moved as though no royal 
blood coursed in his veins, he became the boon com- 
panion of the social riff-rafif of his day, and Falstaff 
and his revelling boisterous crew afforded congenial 



A REGAL CONSCIOUSNESS 115 

society. The king^s son was dead! No large and 
dignified relationship selected his ways and pro- 
tected the purity and sweetness of his intercourse. 
But stride on to the further unfoldings of the great 
drama, where Prince Hal awakes from his tragic 
sleep, and his consciousness expands, and in the now 
illumined country of his soul there tower the long- 
eclipsed heights of his own lineage and nobility. 
And Prince Hal came to himself; once dead, he is 
now alive again! And mark how the recovered 
sense of great relationships purifies and chastens his 
life. It is with him as with the prodigal, the swine- 
company no longer affords congenial nutriment for 
his heightened cravings and desires. Hear this little 
snatch of final intercourse between Palstaff and the 
recovered son: 

Fal. *' Save thy grace, King Hal ! my noble Hal ! 

My King! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! " 

King. " I know thee not, old man : fall to thy prayers : 

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 

I have long dreamed of such a kind of man, 

So surfeit swelled, so old, and so profane: 

But, being awake, I do despise my dream. 
* * * 

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest: 

Presume not that I am the thing I was: 

For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive 

That I have turned away my former self: 

So will I those that kept me company.'* 

The recovery of an enlarged and kingly conscious- 
ness hallowed and refined his entire life. He found 
his pedigree-roll, and he moved like a king! 



116 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

ITow, the Christian religion seeks to create this 
vast and dignified consciousness in the minds of all 
men. It seeks to destroy a small and poisonous self- 
conceit, and to replace it by a splendid self-esteem. 
Christianity comes to me with this ennobling min- 
istry. It says to me, '' What a mean little conscious- 
ness thou hast ! How near is thine horizon ! How 
low is thy heaven ! Let me enlarge thee ! '' That 
is ever the mission and ministry of Christianity; 
indeed, one might say that the whole of the inspired 
word, from end to end, is the kindly minister of 
enlargement. The good Lord seeks to take down the 
walls of our mental prison house, and give our 
souls outlook and breathing-space in the infinite. 
And how does He do it? He does it, first of all, 
by recalling us to the knowledge of our pedigree: 
" this my son ! ^' There is royal blood in our veins. 
We have made sorry wrecks of ourselves, as indeed 
do many members of our social aristocracy, but I 
have never yet gazed upon an aristocratic ruin with- 
out discerning some birthmarks of an original dis- 
tinction; some bit of a capital remained, some fine 
line of tracery about a broken window or a half- 
demolished porch — something glorious was left of the 
original glory. And so it is with the aristocratic 
family of God : in our ruins there are abundant signs 
of the purposed temple, a broken fragment here and 
there suggestive of the grandeur of the finished pile ; 
but, even if there were nothing else to remind us of 
our lineage, there is the neglected voice of conscience 



A REGAL CONSCIOUSNESS 117 

moaning over the ruin like the wail of a cold night- 
wind. But be all that as it may, the Lord comes 
to us in His gracious evangel and seeks to recall our 
minds to the vastness and splendour of our forgotten 
kinships. " Thou art a son of the Almighty, thou 
art a daughter of the xllmighty? Are these fitting 
habits, is this a suitable attire? Why these rags? 
Where is thine imperial purple? Where is thy 
kingly stride and thy splendid yet easy demeanour? 
' The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's 
crib : but My people do not consider ! ' Thou hast 
forgotten Me, and thou hast therefore lost thyself ! '' 
And so the good Lord comes to tell us that we were 
never purposed to be the imprisoned victims of a 
small ambition, circling gin-like in the petty round 
of the immediate day, but to step out, with fine, 
swinging, progressive stride, in " the glorious liberty 
of the children of God." Dost thou know who thou 
art? Thou art the kinsman of the Almighty. 
Ransack thy pedigree ! And '^ knowing " it, what 
shall be thy life? 

'' Can you see the castle ? " I once asked of two 
humble cottagers, who lived in a little house not far 
from one of '' the stately homes of England " ; " can 
you see the castle ? " And they answered me : " Only 
in the winter time ! " When the green foliage was 
thick and massy the castle was hidden, but when the 
nipping winter began to strip the trees and lay them 
bare the castle came into view. '' Only in the 
winter time," said my humble friends. And it is 



118 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

when tlie foliage round about our life is thick and 
plentiful, and we are embosomed in summer fulness 
and glory, that God's castle is so frequently hidden, 
and we lose the mind of the spiritual and the eternal. 
And then He sends an apparently cruel but kindly 
winter, our trees are stripped and bared, and in our 
impoverishment we see our Father^s house ! " And 
there arose a mighty famine in that land. . . . And 
he said, How many hired servants of my father ! " 
The castle was in view! O, kindly sable ministry, 
that opens our souls to the Infinite! 

But we need not wait the unveiling calamity. Let 
us quietly take our pedigree, keep it by us, and con- 
tinually rehearse it; let us con our lineage, and 
nourish a holy and defensive self-esteem. And let 
us address noble affirmatives to our own souls. " My 
soul, thou hast unutterably great relationships ! The 
Lord Almighty thinks upon thee, and loves thee, and 
seeks thy company! The Lord Jesus Christ is thy 
elder brother, and is waiting to share with thee 
things hidden from the foundations of the world ! 
Rise, my soul, and humbly claim thy destined dig- 
nity ! '^ And, believe me, that vast and ample con- 
sciousness will express itself in gentle and kindly 
ministries among our fellow-men. ^' Jesus knowing 
that the Father had given all things into His hands, 
and that He was come from God and went to God: 
He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments, 
and took a towel and girded Himself, and began 
to wash the disciples' feet." 



X 

LULLED BY HIGH IDEALS 

" I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and full of compas- 
sion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and repentest 
Thee of the evil." — Jo:^ah iv. 2. 

''I knew that Thou art a gracious God.'' And 
when that is the indwelling knowledge, lying in the 
secret heart of a man, what will be the character of 
the man ? ^^ I knew that Thou art a gracious God." 
What will be the ethical fruit of such knowledge? 
What may we anticipate as the spontaneous and 
shining issue of such convictions? What was the 
practical and vital logic of Jonah himself? Let me 
prefix the preliminary sentence of the verse, for I 
have only given an amputated limb. Here is the 
full body of the apostle's thought. '^ Therefore I 
hasted to flee unto Tarshish, for I knew that Thou 
art a gracious God." " I ignored the clamant im- 
perative of the Eternal will, for I knew that Thou 
art a gracious God ! " ^^ I knew that Thou art 
. . . full of compassion, slow to anger, and plente- 
ous in mercy " ; and, therefore, '' I hasted to flee 
unto Tarshish," even though the voice of the Eternal 
was calling loudly elsewhere, and Xineveh was speed- 
ing down a steep path of degeneracy to moral and 

119 



120 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

spiritual death. '' Arise, go to Nineveh, that great 
city, and cry against it : for their wickedness is come 
up before Me ! '' " Therefore, I hasted to flee unto 
Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious God." 
You see the steps of his reasoning. Nineveh is most 
certainly needy. Its wickedness is portentous and 
glaring. Things, bad beyond utterance, gaily pa- 
rade themselves in the public streets. Corruption 
deepens into intensified filth, all the filthier that it 
bedecks itself with an artificial grace. Sorrow hides 
in silence, and wrong smothers its wails for fear of 
deeper wrong. The end of it all must — ah, well, the 
end of it all will be all right: the ungodly ferment 
will issue in delicate wine: the gracious Lord will 
interpose, the putrefaction will cease, and the terrors 
of night will be changed into the songs of the morn- 
ing! Nineveh is bad, but then the Lord is good, 
and in His gracious keeping I confidently entrust 
the guilty city. Nineveh is needy ! but '' I knew 
that Thou art a gracious God, and full of compas- 
sion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, and re- 
pentest Thee of the evil '' . . . ^^ and therefore I 
hasted to flee unto Tarshish ! " Here is an extraor- 
dinary mental succession; a gloriously rich concep- 
tion of Deity used to justify a flagrant neglect of 
duty; here is indolence finding its sustenance and 
justification in grace. Let me suggest to you a 
rather startling Scriptural parallelism. In one of 
our Lord's parables He opens out a man's mind and 
reveals to us quite another conception of Deity than 



LULLED BY HIGH IDEALS 121 

the one upon which we have just gazed. ^^ I knew 
Thee." He begins almost after the manner of 
Jonah — '' 1 knew thee that thou art a hard man, 
reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering 
where thou hast not strawed." And what will be 
the issue of such conception, a conception of austerity 
and tyranny — a Pharaoh on the throne ? " And I 
went and buried thy talent in the earth." The con- 
ception of unjust austerity found its issue in moral 
sterility. A man's conception of Deity is used to 
justify a deliberate neglect of duty. But here is the 
amazing coincidence, that the issues of the two con- 
ceptions are the same, while the conceptions are 
infinitely divergent. ^^ Therefore I hasted to flee 
unto Tarshish," and duty was ignored ! ^' 1 went 
and buried thy talent," and duty was ignored! 
And yet one had its origin in tyranny, the other had 
its origin in grace. There must be something rotten 
in the premise when there is something so unhallowed 
in the conclusion. But before we make further 
quest into the roots of the reasoning let us mark its 
vital connection with some of the thought of our 
own time. ^' Arise, go to Nineveh ! " It was a call 
to the foreign field. It was the foreigner, the 
stranger, the far-away man, who was in peril, in 
darkness, in need. And it was foreign service that 
was disregarded, or say excused, on the plea that all 
men had to deal with a gracious, and merciful, and 
all-compassionating God. ^^ It will be all right with 
the Ninevitcs ! The sword of Damocles is not sus- 



122 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

pended above them! Their sky is not black with 
imminent storm, pregnant with the thunders and 
lightnings of an outraged God. Their sky, like 
ours, is brimming with grace, and His banner over 
them is love. There is nothing urgent in their con- 
dition ; ' He is slow to anger and plenteous in 
mercy/ ^' We can go leisurely about our ministries ; 
there is no call for haste! 

I ask you — is there not something modern in the 
ancient reasoning? Let us look at the practical 
logic by which our conduct is determined. A hun- 
dred years ago men held very different conceptions 
of the needs and perils of the foreign field to those 
which are commonly held to-day. The conception of 
God was more awful, more austere, more severe. The 
conception of hell was more appalling, irreparable, 
full of final destruction. To be ignorant of God 
was to be lost. The heathen — the men of Nineveh — 
were regarded as sliding, in countless multitudes, 
into an inevitable and hopeless hell. Men used to 
make appalling calculations, and they would alarm 
their audiences by telling them how many were 
passing, with every tick of the clock, into irretriev- 
able perdition. The state of the foreign field was 
looked upon with all the urgency with which we look 
upon a rudderless and broken ship, held in the grip 
of mighty tempestuous seas, with man after man 
dropping numb from the rigging into the engulfing 
deep. And foreign mission work was life-boat work, 
and the boat was launched, and men went out to 



LULLED BY HIGH IDEALS 123 

save imperilled brethren on the tremendous seas of 
common life! And O, the urgency of it, and the 
sacrifice of it, and the heroism of it! And 0, the 
joy of it, and the shoutings of it, when the life- 
boatmen came ashore again, and told the story of 
salvation, effected on far-off and desolate seas ! And 
so, when men are drowning, their saviours speed 
upon their mission, and the pleasure trip to Tarshish 
is delayed. 

But now, in many ways, for better or worse, the 
thought of the Church has changed. We have taken 
the frown out of the sky, and we have removed the 
peril out of the deep. We no longer think of the 
heathen as dropping by shoals into unillumined and 
hopeless night. If they drop from the rigging at 
all, they fall, not into engulfing seas, but into " the 
everlasting arms ! '' And because that hell has closed 
her mouth, and mercy's gates are opened wide, we 
feel that the urgency has gone out of the mission, 
and that the strain of care and sacrifice can be 
eased. We no longer go out as life-boats — to save 
souls, but as teachers to enlighten minds; no longer 
to visit possible wrecks, but to beautify the boats 
whose certain haven is their Father's land. Our 
emphasis has changed ; we know that " He is a 
gracious God, and full of compassion, slow to anger, 
and plenteous in mercy,'' and the missionary fleet- 
ness has gone out of our steps. 

That was Jonah's reasoning, and I say it is allied 
to a similar reasoning which is commonly prevalent 



124 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

in our time, a reasoning which is tragically and 
pathetically untrue, and which must crucify the Son 
of God afresh. It means that hell ha^ more motive 
power than heaven, and that fear has more constraint 
than grace. But have they? Let us come to the 
very crux of the problem, and let us root out the 
loose and rotten elements in the reasoning. Is fear 
mightier than grace, and does it endow the soul with 
fleeter and stronger wings ? ^^ I knew that Thou art 
a gracious God.'' He knew little or nothing about 
it! That is the hiatus in his reasoning. That is 
the rottenness in his conclusion. He knew little 
or nothing about the grace and mercy of the Lord. 
He had an opinion about it, but he had no deep 
experimental knowledge of its enriching and inspir- 
ing power. " 1 knew ! '' He was using a great 
word with painfully superficial meaning. In the 
Old and ISTew Testament knowledge is a word of un- 
speakably deep significance, reaching away to the 
infinite. '' If a man say, I know God, and keep not 
His commandments, he is a liar." ^^ This is . . . 
life, to know ! '' To know is to live, to share the life 
of Him we know. Will you mark the shining peak 
of this towering aspiration of the Apostle Paul? 
" What things were gain to me, these have I counted 
loss for Christ. Yea, verily, and I count all things 
to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of 
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss 
of all things, ^nd do count them but dung . . . 
that I may know Him ! '' The superlative glory 



LULLED BY HIGH IDEALS .125 

which awaits him in the beatific light is this, '^ Then 
shall I know even as also I am known." 

The cardinal element in spiritual knowledge is not 
a well-arranged theology, but a religious experience. 
A well-arranged theology may be like a herbalist's 
dry museum; a religious experience has about it the 
life and beauty and fragrance of a ^^ well-w^atered 
garden.'' To have really known the gracious God is 
to have tasted and seen how gracious He is, and to 
go about with the taste in the mouth, an ever- 
pleasant and refreshing inspiration. And there is 
this sure mark — I think it is the hall-mark upon all 
the grace-blest children of God, that they are keenly 
desirous that others should share their experience, 
and should roam and feed in the garden of their own 
soul's delight. The grace-blessed child can never 
tarry comfortably in the garden alone : his own joys 
are multiplied when others are plucking fruit from 
the same tree. 

This is his cry to those without, '^ I sat down 
under his trees, and he has satisfied my mouth with 
good things ! " ^^ O taste and see that the Lord is 
good ! " '' Taste and see ! " And why ? Because 
in this sphere the taster becomes the advertiser. 
The experimentalist becomes the herald. The dis- 
ciple becomes the apostle, inevitably and spontane- 
ously, for every soul added to the kingdom becomes 
the witness of his Saviour's praise. To know the 
grace of God is inevitably to become its messenger. 
I am not afraid of a broadened conception of the 



126 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

love and grace of the Lord if only men are in the 
Lord's garden and living on His fruits. Every guest 
will be a missioner, who will go out into the high- 
ways and hedges, intent on multiplying the guests, 
and the sphere of his enterprise will be as wide as the 
world. Eaten grace makes one hungry for service. 
Missionary work will need no urging when the 
Church takes her meals at the enriching and blood- 
making table of the Lord. What I do fear is, that 
we should sing of a grace that we have not known. 
I am afraid of that merely theoretical and drugging 
conception of grace which makes us easy about the 
needs and perils of Nineveh, and which relaxes the 
thews and sinews of a masculine sense of duty. Let 
us judge the reality of our discipleship by the 
intensity of our apostleship. Let us measure our 
knowledge of grace by the quality of our sentiments 
towards Nineveh. " In Christ Jesus there is neither 
Jew nor Gentile." He who has tasted the Lord loves 
the race. Jonah thought well of God, and neglected 
man. 

^^ And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the 
second time/' Oh, the mercy hidden in those three 
closing words! ''The second time!'' That God 
should give us a second chance! The mercy of it, 
as a multitude can testify ! And Jonah, after tragic 
and sorrowing experience, after distress and provi- 
dence which had brought him into deeper intimacy 
with his Maker's will, heard the call '^ the second 
time." ^^ Arise, go unto Nineveh, and preach ! " 



LULLED BY HIGH IDEALS 127 

'' So Jonah arose, and went unto jSTineveh, according 
to the word of the Lord/' And what happened? 
He found that this weary, heart-sickened, sinful 
people had a secret aching bias towards God ! They 
listened to his message, they heeded it, they absorbed 
it, they obeyed it. They '' turned from their evil 
ways," they set their sin-marred, sorrow-worn faces 
toward heaven, and cried mightily unto God. While 
this man had been idly journeying to Tarshish, this 
people had been secretly wearying for God. And is 
not the coincidence modern? With all my soul I 
believe that the secret heart of the people is aweary- 
ing for our Lord and Christ. 



XI 

THE DOOM OF NINEVEH 

The book of Nahum is a little book, bound up 
within the covers of the Old Testament, and prob- 
ably the majority of us know as little about it as 
we do of some antiquated State document crumbling 
away in a dusty cellar of the British Museum. The 
little book is 2,500 years old, and yet it is by no 
means mouldy or mouldering. Put it side by side 
with a chapter of Carlyle's " French Revolution,'' 
and there is nothing fusty about it, nothing yellow, 
withered, or obsolete. Indeed, I am greatly im- 
pressed with its modernity. In many respects it 
is more modern than our daily press, and if you 
could compare it with the very last chapter of 
British history, as written by the recording angel 
himself, you would see at once that it is quite up to 
date. And, therefore, I do not hold up before you, 
between finger and thumb, a ragged remnant of 
musty story. I bring you a leaf which has not 
withered, a fresh leaf from that book of life whose 
continued story, with all its tragedy and judgment, 
we are busy writing to-day. 

And what is the little book about? It tells the 
graphic story of " the decline and fall " of Nineveh, 
that great world-power, with its seething popula- 

128 



THE DOOM OF NINEVEH 129 

tion, with its flaming greed of gain, and with its 
vast trading arms stretching out to grasp the far-off 
treasures of the earth. I am not so foolish as to 
attempt to show close analogies between Xineveh 
and Britain. The parallels cannot be dra\\Ti. Amid 
manv similarities there are fundamental contrasts, 
contrasts in religion, contrasts in morals, contrasts 
in quality of patriotism, and, not least, contrasts in 
that unique power of colonisation which has isolated 
Britain from all the rest of the world. And yet, the 
causes which have built or ruined empires build and 
ruin them still. The sins and negligences, which 
in other days have consumed the secret strength of 
the individual, are fierce and corrosive still. And, 
therefore, it will not be ill-spent time if we peep 
through this bit of ancient history, and watch the 
forces of doom as they execute sentence upon the 
sin and folly of a great imperial state. 

What, then, was the moral condition of Nineveh 
as it is portrayed for us in this little book? There 
is one passage, brief and pregnant, swift as a light- 
ning flash, and in its vivid gleam four things stand 
revealed and named : " lies,^^ " robbery," '' witch- 
crafts," and '^ filth," and it is round about these fes- 
tering presences that the prophet beholds the gather- 
ing forces of doom. Let us look at them. 

" Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies! '' 
It is not without suggestion that the word which is 
thus translated ^^ lies " signifies a presence which 
has become emaciated and thin. Truth is no longer 



130 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

solid ; it has become a veneer. Goodness is no longer 
sterling silver; it is only silver-plated. Rectitude 
has become an iridescent film, a mere dressing for 
human affairs, a moral cosmetic. Truth has become 
thin. It is no longer profound. It is a superficial 
skin, and not a cubical reality. Truth is acted, it is 
no longer lived. It is a graceful form, and not a 
dependable spirit. It is a well-dressed courtesy, 
concealing purposes as black and gruesome as the 
tomb. Yes, in old j^ineveh truth had become very 
thin. And this emaciation had been primarily pro- 
duced by two things. First, by the greed of gain, 
which always makes men specious, and plausible, and 
tricky, inciting them to any manner of outward seem- 
liness in the interests of prosperous enterprise. Yes, 
truth was a very skinny presence in the Assyrian 
markets. And the second cause of her emaciation 
was the love of display. Nineveh had got it into 
its head that fine feathers do make fine birds, and 
there was a most feverish competition for the gaudi- 
est show. And so the Ninevites had somehow got 
hold of the hues of the kingfisher, and the homely 
crow had picked up the peacock's plumes, and was 
most laboriously acquiring its strut and stride! 
And thus society had become unnatural, artificial, 
a company of actors wearily acting their parts, and 
'' truth had fallen in the street." 

" Woe to the bloody city, it is all full of lies, and 
robhery." When falsehood is practised, injustice 
will be wrought. The two cannot be divorced. 



THE DOOM OF NINEVEH 131 

When truth becomes thin, life will become cruel. 
Enthrone artifice and you stupefy conscience. When 
we lose the sense of the beauty of truth we lose 
our sense of the grandeur of right ; and with the 
sense of right goes the recognition of rights, and 
life becomes a cockpit, a weird scene of moral chaos. 
That is a sequence as sure and inevitable as any 
succession in the realm of matter. Let falsehood 
reigfi in business and in manners, and most assuredly 
life will become harsh and hard, and the weakest 
in the land will become the helpless victims of raw 
injustice and oppression. 

^' Woe to the bloody city, it is all full of lies, and 
robbery, . . . and is the mistress of witchcrafts/' 
That is to say, she acknowledges no abiding moral 
sovereignty. The moral decrees are as capricious as 
herself. There is no unchanging imperative, as 
irresistible as the march of the stars. And, there- 
fore, she resorted to spells and enchantments, and 
witchcrafts, and she enthroned her own trickery and 
artificiality in the seats of the highest. There was 
nothing steady, nothing dependable, nothing sure. 
Her moral world was a world of chance and caprices, 
and everything would be " as luck would have it." 

And the last item unfolded in this dark portrayal 
of natural life is the widespread presence of ''filth/' 
You can expect no other. With life conceived as 
a lucky-bag, and everything a lottery, and truth 
emaciated to mere pretence, and cruel injustice ramp- 
ant, you may surely expect an aggressive animalism 



132 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

to ride triuinphantly through the state. " Iniquity 
gathereth iniquity unto itself '' ; dirt makes dirt ; and, 
in spite of all its pomp and glittering speciousness, 
in the eyes of its God Nineveh was unclean. 

But with its " lies/' and '' robbery/' and " witch- 
crafts/' and '' filth/' Nineveh was possessed of 
mighty material resources. She was engirt by mas- 
sive, towering walls of apparently invulnerable 
strength. She was possessed by an army as terrible 
and brutal -' as was ever suffered to roll its forces 
across the world." Assyriology has unearthed miles 
of sculpture which portrayed endless processions of 
soldiers, abundantly armed with all the martial 
equipment of the ancient world. You can see and 
hear the goings of her soldiery in the graphic pages 
of our prophet ; " mighty men/' carrying shields 
red with blood ; '^ valiant men in scarlet " ; " chariots 
with flaming torches " rushing along the roads ; 
prancing horses, and '^ rattling of wheels " ; '^ bright 
sword," and '' glittering spear " ! And spoil upon 
spoil, spoil of silver and spoil of gold! And behind 
these vast walls, on which the chariots raced, and 
protected by this tremendous array, the Ninevites 
lived — in lies, and cruelty, and witchcraft, and filth ; 
and in their prosperity they said, " We shall never 
be moved." 

'" And the Lord . . . ! '' Ay, what about Him ? 
[What has this little, fragile, old-world document to 
tell us about Him? Well, I have read the little 
book through a dozen times, and I will tell you what 



THE DOOM OF NINEVEH 133 

lifts itself up pre-eminent above everything else in 
my mind, amid all the comings and goings of armies, 
amid all the heated, artificial hnrryings of the city. 
What strikes me is the extraordinary aliveness of the 
eternal Grod. The Grod of Xahum is no absentee 
deity, aloof and apathetic, dwelling afar oflf in the 
lotus-land of a distant heaven. Mark the prophet's 
phraseology which describes this extraordinary alive- 
ness of the eternal God: '^ God is jealous''; ^^ the 
Lord revengeth " ; " the Lord hath His way in the 
whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the 
dust of His feet '' ; " He rebuketh the sea, and 
maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers; Bashan 
languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon 
languisheth ! " ; " the mountains quake at Him, and 
the hills melt, and the earth is burned in His pres- 
ence ! " Conceive that sublime procession of the 
Eternal round about their gaudy, seedy, glittering 
city ! It is like the wild whirl of the elements when 
Lady Macbeth was creeping about her bloody work 
in Duncan's chamber. But come nearer still. " The 
Lord is furious: the Lord will take vengeance on 
His adversaries " ; " Who can stand before His in- 
dignation ? and who can abide in the fierceness of 
His anger ? " You may call that anthropomorphic, 
if you will. Tou may make whatever discount you 
please. At any rate, it is a real and not a painted 
God, and it has a moral relevancy to real men and 
moral needs. I know there is an exquisitely sweet 
passage in the very next verse, such a passage as I 



134 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

love to find, but never feel quite safe in taking away : 
'' The Lord is good : a stronghold in the day of 
trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him.'^ 
We all feel the soft graciousness of the words. And 
how violent the contrast! " The Lord is furious! " 
That is like the terrible flame of Vesuvius. " The 
Lord is good!'^ That is like the luxuriant vines 
which clothe its lower slopes. But the flame and 
the vine are from the same mountain, and the fury 
and the goodness are of the same God. If there 
were no fury there could be no goodness: if there 
were no holiness there could be no grace. If God 
were never angry He could never love. If God can 
trifle with sin He is neither holy nor good. If God 
cannot be angry with Nineveh there is no ^^ great 
white throne/' and moral sovereignty is destroyed. 
But there are two words of the Lord, as spoken by 
the lips of His prophet, which express the Divine 
attitude to sin in ways which I think I can never 
forget, and they are these : " I am against thee ! '' 
'' 1 will make thy grave, for thou art vile.'' Such is 
the God of Judgment, in the midst of the imperial 
city. 

Now look at the working out of the judgment, as 
unveiled by the prophet Nahum. I am impressed 
with the apparent leisureliness of the process. " The 
Lord is slow," cries the prophet; yes, a slow fire is 
the fire of judgment. " Slow to anger ! " Judg- 
ment does not leap with the spring of a lion : it moves 
like th^ locust and the cankerworm. " It shall eat 



THE DOOM OF NINE\TEH 135 

thee up like the cankerworm." See^ then^ the slow, 
sure process of the judgment. 

It first eats away the wits. '*' Thou shalt be 
drunken! " Have you never seen that happen in the 
individual life, when the long-continued process of 
sin has deprived a man of his wits, and he has lost 
the sense of moral drift, and he no longer realises 
where he is or whither he is going? So shall it be 
with states and empires. '^ Thou shalt be drunken." 
The wages of sin is a certain stupefaction. '^ The 
Lord hath poured upon them the spirit of a deep 
sleep." It was even so, our Master tells us, in the 
v%'icked days before the flood. They were eating and 
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the 
day that ISToah entered into the ark, and they knew 
not! '' The sins of a people induce a spirit of sleep. 
They become numb to the lessons of history. They 
become blind to the signs of the times, and they 
become deaf to the sound of the approaching judg- 
ment, whose chariots are even now rumbling across 
the plains. The cankerworm eats away their wits, 
and they sleep. 

But in this process of judgment, not only are the 
wits consumed, the cankerworm also eats away an 
empire's masculine strength. What fearful irony 
is in the prophetic challenge : ^^ Where is the lion, 
the old lion, and the lion's whelp," whom none could 
make afraid ? Where is the lion, the lion-element 
in the state, the invincible majesty of royal char- 
acter? Eaten away by the cankerworm of judg- 



136 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

ment. ISTineveli retained the lion's skin, and the 
lion's roar, but it had lost the lion, and in the day of 
crisis it was revealed as weak and timid as a hare. 
Nineveh could not retain the lion-like virtue in 
conditions of falsehood, robbery, witchcraft and filth. 
The lion lost his heart, and was led about with a 
string. The masculine strength was gone. " And 
it shall come to pass that all they that look upon* 
thee shall say, IsTineveh is waste ! " Will any prophet 
in some coming day face our British Empire and say, 
" Where is the lion, the old lion, whom none could 
make afraid ? " 

And so the process of judgment proceeded apace, 
until in the long run the material defences proved 
as flimsy as a paper shield. Her walls were softened 
at the foundations, and her mighty palaces were 
dissolved. ^' All thy strongholds shall be like fig 
trees with the first ripe figs ; if they be shaken they 
shall even fall into the mouth of the eater." Her 
vast army degenerated into a display of uniformed 
weakness, and her clamorous pomp was silenced and 
humiliated in a night. '' And I will cast abom- 
inable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will 
set thee as a gazing-stock. And all that look upon 
thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid 
waste ! " 

She hath met her doom ! 

What significance has all this for thee and me? 
Even this. To warn us to retain the friendship of 
God. To warn us that clean habits are a finer 



THE DOOM OF NINEVEH 137 

defence than strong walls. To warn us to erect the 
Lord's plumb-line in the home and in the state, 
and to build by its counsel. To warn us to '^ seek 
first " that righteousness which alone exalteth a na- 
tion. To warn us to seek our strength and treasure 
in noble character. Its significance is to warn us 
to play the real man if we would abide unshaken. 

"The tumult and the shouting dies: 
The captains and the kings depart: 

Stin stands thine ancient sacrifice, 
A humble and a contrite heart. 

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget — lest we forget." 

** Far-called, our navies melt away : 

On dime and headland sinks the fire. 

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! 

Judge of the nations, spare us yet, 
Lest we forget — lest we forget." 



XII 
SOUND IN PATIENCE 

" Sound in patience." — Titus ii. 2. 

That is not the usual standpoint from which we 
estimate the soundness of our fellows. , The test is 
frequently credal, and a man's soundness is ascer- 
tained from the quantity and quality of his beliefs. 
Or the test is ecclesiastical, and soundness is sought 
in a man's connection with some one or other of our 
many visible organisations. When men speak of 
soundness in religious relationships the judges are 
rarely found investigating the realm of moral issues. 
But the apostle takes us to quite another point of 
view. Here soundness is estimated not by length 
of creed, but by length of patience; not by the 
number of articles in our mental professions, but by 
the powers of endurance in our ordinary tempers; 
not by the abundance of our confessions, but by the 
tenacity and intensity of our continuance. 

Well, now, how should we stand this form of 
scrutiny ? If we were judged according to our creeds, 
the majority of us might pass the examination with 
honours. But how should we fare if the judgment 
were to busy itself with the soundness of our tempers ? 
For experience makes it abundantly evident that 

138 



SOUND IN PATIENCE 189 

credal soundness may co-exist with diseased and 
waspish dispositions. Orthodoxy in belief may live 
in the same house with a very repellent heterodoxy in 
manners. A man may contend for a fine orthodoxy 
with a temper which reveals him to be a boor. And 
the same indictment may be made against many 
men who boast of. their heterodoxy; they support 
their heterodoxy with a bitterness and a virulence 
which make it very clear that broad theories about 
the vineyard can be allied with an exceedingly nasty 
and unattractive vintage. And therefore do I say 
that multitudes who might pass the credal test would 
fail at the test of the temper. And the same pathetic 
collapse might be the lot of many who are proud 
of their ecclesiastical soundness. The pages of his- 
tory have made the ecclesiastics' temper notorious, 
and contemporary history is by no means changing 
the record. The ecclesiastical battlefield is almost 
invariably the exhibition-ground of short and hasty 
tempers. We contend for the soundness of our -isms 
with an almost riotous display of the unsoundness 
of our patience. And, therefore, I think it is a 
striking warning which the apostle gives us when he 
diverts our attention to this possible heterodoxy of 
temper, and teaches us that one of the main essen- 
tials of a healthy and progressive life is found in 
the possession of a strong and invincible patience. 

Now the Apostle Paul has himself been described 
by a great Biblical student as '' Paul the undis- 
courageable." And, indeed^ he is worthy of the 



140 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

name, and there is no better way of studying the 
significance of his teaching than by watching his 
own life. He is his own best commentary on his own 
counsels. His purposes were frequently broken by 
tumultuous shocks. His plans were destroyed by 
hatred and violence. His course was twisted here, 
diverted there, and wrenched a hundred times from 
its appointed goings by the mischievous plots of 
wicked men. The little churches he had founded 
were in chronic disturbance and unrest. They were 
often infested with puerilities, and sometimes they 
were honeycombed by heresies which consumed their 
very life. And yet how sound and noble his pa- 
tience! With what fruitful tenderness he waits for 
his lagging pupils ! His very reproofs are given, not 
with the blind, clumsy blows of a street mob, but 
with the quiet, discriminating hand of a surgeon. 
This man, more than most men, had proved the 
hygienic value of endurance, and he, more than most 
men, was competent to counsel his fellow-believers 
to discipline themselves to the '' soundness of pa- 
tience." 

Let us, therefore, look a little more closely at the 
virtue. This virtue of patience is to be exer- 
cised in seasons of waiting. This is certainly the 
hardest and most exacting exercise. I suppose that 
the rarest form of courage is displayed when we are 
compelled to sit still, and things are happening in 
which we can take no part. Action would reduce 
the tension and bring relief, but action is impossible. 



SOUND IN PATIENCE 141 

We have an example of this in the awful mining 
calamity which has recently desolated so many homes 
in the United States. It required one kind of 
courage and one kind of patience to descend the 
uncertain mine and work away at the accumulated 
debris in the dubious hope of finding the buried 
men alive. But the women above, the wives of the 
buried men, standing there through day and night, 
able to do nothing but wait — these needed a finer 
type of patience and courage. I do not wonder that 
when the managers asked the poor afflicted souls to 
get a shed ready for the possible reception of re- 
covered men, and to prepare bedding and food, the 
terrible tension was relieved and comfort was found 
in ministry. It is the same in the life of a soldier. 
The acutest strain is not in the fighting, but in 
perilous waiting when fighting is impossible. And 
so it is in common life, in common trouble and dis- 
tress. Our severest test is when we are in the midst 
of a serious campaign and our ammunition is spent. 
It is when a loved one is sick, and the ailment is 
absolutely beyond our ministry. It is when a dear 
one has gone astray, and we can think of nothing 
more to do to recover him. It is in seasons like 
these that the finest courage and the ripest patience 
display their superlative glory. '' Although the fig 
tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the 
vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields 
shall yield no meat; the flocks shall be cut off from 
the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls ; yet 



142 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of 
my salvation.'^ This is surely a supreme instance 
of the virtue of being '' sound in patience.'^ 

But the virtue of patience is also to be exercised 
in seasons of activity. The army needs patience in 
waiting; it also needs patience in fighting. Im- 
patience can spoil the waiting, and impatience can 
spoil the fighting. Impatient action defeats its own 
ends. An impatient shot registers a very erratic 
mark. An impatient batsman throws away the 
game. Yes, we require patience in the field as well 
as in the pavilion. And so it is a general principle 
in life; patience is not something to be called up 
merely in hours of enforced indolence; it is not a 
stand-by in emergencies; it is the virtue which en- 
dows every moment with promise, and which makes 
the most commonplace action healthily effective. 

Now let me mention two or three conditions in 
life in which this '' sound patience '^ would operate 
with splendid effectiveness. 

First of all, then, we need a " sound patience " 
when we are in the presence of oppressive mysteries. 
There is no one who does any thinking at all who has 
not entered the dark, cold, chilling circle of appar- 
ently insoluble mystery. It may be the burdensome 
presence of immediate and palpable realities, such 
as the presence of suffering and pain. Or it may be 
those problems lying upon the borderland, or well 
within that mysterious realm where we seem to have 
neither eyes nor ears, hands nor feet; the mysterj^ 



SOUND IN PATIENCE 143 

of God, the mystery of Providence, the mystery of 
Jesus Christ — His incarnation, His resurrection, His 
glorification. His relation to sin, and hope, and 
human endeavour, and the veiled to-morrow ; and all 
the great pressing problems of human birth, and 
human life, and human destiny. What shall we do 
with them ? Or, what shall we not do with them ? 
Let us make it an essential in all our assumptions 
that a pre-requisite to all discovery is a ^^ sound 
patience.'^ Do not let us deal with them as though 
they were Christmas puzzles, to be taken up at odd 
moments and cursorily examined, and then thrown 
aside again in irritation and impetuous haste. I am 
frequently amazed how hastily men and women drop 
these things; they ^'cannot be bothered with them," 
and so they retreat into a perilous indifference or 
into a fruitless agnosticism. George Eliot dropped 
her vital faith in the course of eleven days. Robert 
Elsmere dropped his vital faith with almost equal 
celerity. I heard from one young fellow who was 
burning all his boats and refusing henceforth to sail 
these vast, mysterious, glorious seas, and all because 
he had read a little pamphlet of not more than fifty 
pages from cover to cover ! jSTow I want to suggest 
to the young people to be patient in the presence 
of mystery, and to assume that patience itself is 
one of the great instruments of exploration and dis- 
cernment and interpretation. I want to suggest that 
patience itself is power, spiritual power, both per- 
ceptive and receptive, and that the very possession 



144 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

of patience gives us the requisite medium for be- 
holding the glory of the Lord. Do not stake your 
spiritual destiny on the throw of the dice ! Do not 
let one month^s hasty reading turn your backs upon 
the undiscovered glories of the spiritual world. 
Whatever else you lack, do not lack patience! Be 
'' sound in patience.'' " Let patience have her per- 
fect work.'' '' In patience ye shall win your souls." 
And, secondly, we need a " sound patience " in the 
presence of burdensome disappointment. Some glow- 
ing purpose has been suddenly frustrated. Some bit 
of fond work has been rudely broken. We suffer 
profound disappointment. And disappointment is 
apt to kindle irritation, and when that fire begins to 
burn much valuable furniture is in danger of being 
consumed. When irritation is blazing fine resolu- 
tion is apt to be destroyed, and very speedily an 
enterprising life is changed into a dull and smoul- 
dering indifference. In many a life this is the last 
melancholy chapter of what might have been a noble 
and inspiring biography. The knight's chivalrous 
career is spoiled through lack of a solid patience. 
I remember reading the life of Principal Rainy, 
whom his biographer classes with Gladstone and 
[Newman as the three outstanding British figures in 
the latter half of the nineteenth century. I suppose 
that one of the greatest crises in Eainy's life was 
when the House of Lords delivered judgment in the 
appeal case between the '' Wee Frees " and the United 
Free Church of Scotland, Rainy had given the 



strei 



SOUND IN PATIENCE 146 



rength of his life to the Free Church, and his 
matured powers had been consecrated in promoting 
vital and corporate union between his own Church 
and the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. 
A disaffected minority disagreed, and claimed the 
entire material heritage of the Pree Church — its 
churches, its manses, its colleges, its funds. The 
case was taken to the Lords, and the Lords gave 
judgment against the United Free Church, and 
therefore against Dr. Eainy. It seemed as though 
his majestic vision were to be only a temple built in 
dreams ! He was in the Lords when judgment 
was given. He was standing by Mr. Haldane, whose 
guest he was in London. Mr. Haldane says that on 
the way home Eainy never spoke a word. When 
they reached home he sat down and then quietly said : 
^^ I wish I were ten years younger ! ^^ No anger, no 
harsh resentment, no bitterness, no unholy fire ! '' I 
wish I were ten years younger! '' There was no 
need that he were younger. He quietly and strongly 
set to work again to bring order out of confusion, 
and a nobler union out of the very discord and dis- 
ruption. Surely Robert Rainy was " sound in pa- 
tience " ! And if I address these words to any whose 
fine bit of work is lying like a shivered vase upon 
the fioor, let me tenderly counsel him to begin again ; 
aye, to try again, and without bitterness and in 
" sound patience '' prove that he was worthy of the 
better thing he sought. 

And, in a further application, let me sa^ that we 



146 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

need a " sound patience " in the presence of a loiter- 
ing progress. Things are walking, and we want them 
to run. Or, they are running and we want them 
to fly! We hear one another say: " Things don't go 
fast enough for me ! " Or " Things are too slow for 
me ! '' And we become irritated, and then irritable, 
and we lose our patience, and in losing our patience 
we lose the very spirit and instrument of progress. 
How true this is in our relationship to little children, 
and especially to little children who are not highly 
gifted, and who have the misfortune to be dull-witted 
and slow! How fatal is the mistake to become im- 
patient with them! To become impatient is to de- 
prive them of the very atmosphere they require for 
journeying at all; impatience never converts duU- 
wittedness into quick-wittedness, and the teacher or 
the parent who becomes impatient is robbing the child 
of its heritage, increasing its load of disadvantage, 
and making its little pilgrim journey prematurely 
dark and hard. Let us in this matter cultivate a 
" sound patience '^ ; whatever else we lack, let us see 
to it that we are not lacking here. It is worth while ; 
yes, wonderfully worth while! Dull children may 
open slowly, but the loitering opening often brings 
a great surprise. It sometimes happens that the last 
becomes first, and the belated arrival justifies all 
the patience that awaited his appearing. 

And so the principle might accompany us in appli- 
cation to all the many-coloured relationships in life 
where demand is made upon the powers of endur- 



SOUND IN PATIENCE 147 

ance. '' Sound patience " is always a good invest- 
ment. In the presence of a civilisation which moves 
upward with slow and leaden feet, or in the presence 
of an impulsive enthusiasm which squanders its 
treasure in thoughtless speed, sound patience always 
pays. And in the presence of bereavement, when 
daylight fades, and twilight reigns, when the sore 
heart is tempted to believe that the day's labour 
is done, and begins to put its tools away, believe me, 
sound patience pays. 

" Rest comes at length, though life be long and dreary, 
The day must da\\Ti, and darksome night be past, 
All journeys end in welcomes to the weary, 

And heaven, the heart's true home, shall come at last." 

But what is our hope of patience ? Where is our 
resource ? How can we hold out ? Here is the 
beginning of the secret. '' E^e endured!'' " If we 
suffer witli Him/' It is in fellowship with Him, 
and in Him only, that we become triumphant. The 
resources of the patient Lord are offered to those 
who seek to live the patient life. " Blessed are the 
meek, for they shall inherit.'' ^' The meek will He 
guide in judgTaent, and the meek will He teach the 
way." The Lord of patience will bestow His own 
healing virtue upon the waiting soul. 

" Dear Lord and Father of mankind, 
Forgive our feverish ways! 
Reclothe us in our rightful mind: 
In purer lives Thy service find, 
In deeper reverence, praise! " 



XIII 
THE SECRET OF MORAL PROGRESS 

" I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt 
enlarge my heart." — Ps. exix. 32. 

'' The way of Thy commandments/' To many 
people not an attractive road! It is suggestive of 
fences, and trespassing boards, of curbs and re- 
straints. It is a road which is hedged about on every 
side with prohibitions, and its liberties are just the 
guarded freedom of a school walking out under the 
vigilance of a stern and severe control. I stood 
a little while ago in a little village church, where 
on one side of the chancel the Ten Commandments 
were inscribed, and on the other side the beatitudes, 
and I felt in passing from one to the other that I 
had changed from the imprisoning restrictions of the 
winter into the warm expansiveness of the spring. 
I do not say that my feelings were healthy; I do 
not think they were ; for a deeper sensitiveness would 
have probably appreciated the more vital relation- 
ship, and the two temperatures would have been felt 
to be more akin. But it is true that we recoil from 
the commandments and incline to the beatitudes. 
The majority of us experience no particular allure- 
ment in the contemplation of a skeleton, but, after 
all, the skeleton is the inevitable framework on which 



SECRET OF MORAL PROGRESS 149 

the more winsome figure is built. And so in passing 
from the commandments to the beatitudes I was but 
passing from the bald and essential skeleton on which 
these finer and softer graces can be laid. But, even 
with all this, the way of the commandments is not 
an attractive and inspiring road. To mention only 
one thing, our resentment stiffly rises against the 
very name. If the imperative came to us in the 
guise of a gracious counsel, a delicate suggestion, or 
a soft constraint, we might be subdued by the wooing 
note ; but when it comes to us with the rigid features 
of a commandment we stoutly resent the stern ap- 
proach. " When the commandment came,'' says the 
Apostle Paul, " sin revived,'' sin stood up in bold 
hostility, and plunged me into deeper shame. 
'' When the commandment came, sin revived " ; no, 
we do not like it; pilgrimages to Sinai are very 
infrequent, pilgrimages to Calvary are happening 
every day. 

" The way of Thy commandments." Through the 
Christian Scriptures the way becomes steeper and 
more uninviting to the natural man as the centuries 
move along. The gradient of the moral ideal be- 
comes increasingly precipitous. You may get up 
the lower and earlier slopes, but when you get to 
Amos and Hosea and Isaiah the track becomes ex- 
ceeding steep, until when you get to the Lord Him- 
self the radiant ideal lifts itself sheer and clear as 
the Matterhorn. " 1 looked then after Christian to 
see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell 



150 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



from running to going, and from going to clamber 
ing upon his hands and his knees because of the 
steepness of the place/' Yes, the way becomes very- 
steep as we draw near the Lord! His command- 
ments cover not only deed but purpose, not only 
achievement but intention; they pass from the nega- 
tive to the positive, and in the transition the altitude 
is immeasurably heightened. Passion is now judged, 
not by the measure of its destructiveness, but by the 
intensity of its flame. The duty of a balanced re- 
taliation is changed into a beneficent ministry. Love 
is no longer a benign passivity, but an active crusade. 
Take the teachings of our Lord, map out the way 
of His commandments, make a contour map of the 
road, and you will find that you are face to face 
with a shuddering ascent, an ascent so stiff and steep 
that some declare it to be the dream of a visionary, 
the moral prospectus of a fanatic, proclaiming im- 
peratives which are unpractical and impracticable. 
The moral ideal of Jesus is just overwhelming; so 
much so, that many do with it as the Swiss did in 
the olden times with the Alps, build their houses 
with their backs to the towering heights, and they 
face the lowlands of human expediency and moral 
commonplace. 

Now let me remind you that the word " heart '' 
has a much wealthier significance than we commonly 
attach to it to-day. The sjmibolic significance of the 
word in our own day is confined almost exclusively 
to the emotions. If we say that a man has a big 



« 



SECRET OF MORAL PROGRESS 151 

heart we do not refer to the range of his thought, but 
to the quality of his sympathies. If we say that a 
man has no " heart ^^ we mean that the channels of 
feeling are as dry as a river bed in time of drought. 
Nay, we even bring the brain and the heart into dis- 
tinct and isolated positions. We say that a man has 
not very much brain, but that he has a very big 
heart. Now all these modern distinctions must be 
laid aside when we seek the interpretation of the 
word of God. I am not aware that the word 
^' brain " or " brains " ever occurs in the Bible. Ac- 
cording to the primitive physiology of those times the 
heart was the mysterious seat of thought as well as 
of feeling. The heart was '' the seat of man's col- 
lective energies, the very focus of his personal life." 
All the great elements in personality which psychol- 
ogy has discovered and named had their pre-eminent 
seat in the heart ; the heart was the throne in the 
individual empire. And therefore the '' heart " is 
inclusive of the intellectual, the emotional, the voli- 
tional, all that is now signified by thought and feeling 
and will. When, therefore, the Psalmist declares 
that he will " run the way " of God's commandments 
when God shall " enlarge " his heart, he is thinking 
of something far more than the enrichment of senti- 
ment, he is contemplating the heightening and deep- 
ening and broadening of his entire being, when 

" Mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before. 
But vaster/* 



153 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

every part of the life being energised and strengtn^B 
ened by the gracious influences of the eternal 
God. Moral speed will come with spiritual en- 
largement. 

^' I will run . . . when Thou shalt enlarge my 
heart.'' When Thou shalt enlarge my thought! 
Many of us go slowly because we do not see far. 
There is no long range of purpose in our eyes, and 
therefore our feet are sluggish. Our imaginations 
are not peopled with the glories of attainment, and 
therefore there is no eager haste in our steps. Na- 
poleon got his men over the Alps by richly sharing 
with them the promises and purposes of the cam- 
paign. Their eyes were filled with the resplendent 
riches of Italian cities even while they were contend- 
ing with the stupendous obstacles of the trackless 
wastes of snow. Their thoughts included the sunny 
Italian plains as well as the grimness of the imme- 
diate toil, and that forward-cast of the eyes gave 
strength and inspiration to their labours. " I will 
run the way of Thy commandments when Thou shalt 
enlarge my " thought, when my mind is filled with 
Thy blessed purposes, when even now the eyes of my 
imagination rove over the celestial fields, and when 
even now I feel something of the warmth and liberty 
of the coming noon. That is what we need if we are 
ever to run. We need enlargement of thought, range 
of vision^ we need to keep the goal in our eyes from 
the very first step on the difficult way. The goal has 
not been hid. The ultimate purpose is not obscure. 




SECRET OF MORAL PROGRESS 153 



All things that I have heard of my Father I have 
made known unto you.'' ^' We have the mind of 
Christ." Our minds may be expanded to take in the 
glorious purpose, and eyes that are held in that 
vision will most assuredly communicate buoyancy 
and speed to the feet. Look at the Apostle Paid. 
The far-off goal was always flinging its kindly ray 
upon the immediate task. That " far-off divine 
event " was ever in his eyes, and the light of its 
glory pierced through the murkiness and oppressive- 
ness of the immediate day. '' ^o chastening for the 
present seemeth joyous; nevertheless afterward 
. . . ! " Is not that like Napoleon's soldiers with 
the sunlit Italian plains in their eyes ? '^ This light 
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us 
a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; while 
we look not at things that are seen but at the things 
which are not seen ! " Ay, that is the enlarged mind, 
which in its inclusive range gives hospitality to the 
ultimate, and brings the glory of the far-away to 
relieve the burdensomeness of the present task. 
That's the way to get over the hill, and to get over 
it at a run! What is the philosophy of it? It is 
this. Small and exclusive thinking is like a closed 
and tiny room, in which the inmates become asphyxi- 
ated, and reduced to lassitude and languor. Large 
thinking oxygenates the powers, it lets in the vital- 
ising wind from the far-stretching moors of truth, 
all the faculties are toned and braced into strenuous- 
nees, and they can move in difficult ways with ease. 



164 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

There came a day in the life of John Wesley when his 
thought was indefinitely enlarged; far-off goals be- 
came luminous, pervading purposes became clear; 
and that expanded mind imparted such strenuous- 
ness to his feet that henceforth life was a glorious 
race, speeding here and there, in face of difficulties 
inconceivable, but ever in the way of the Lord's 
commandments. " I will run the way of Thy 
commandments when Thou shalt enlarge my 
thought,'' when the quickening light and fire 
of Thine own purpose expands and possesses my 
mind. 

It may be, too, that further enlargements are 
required before the desired speed is obtained. Should 
we not need, perhaps, to emphasise this particular 
element with reference to some men's needs ? ^^ I 
will run the way of Thy commandments when Thou 
shalt enlarge my emotions/^ The mill will not work 
if the mill-race is empty! The weakness of many 
a life is explained by the poverty of its emotions; 
the emotional energy is only that of a reduced and 
languid stream, and there is no power to run the 
mill. There are lives that are seemingly destitute 
of any great capacity to be deeply stirred. Their 
storms are only " storms in a tea-cup " ; they have 
nothing of the terrific movement of the disturbed 
sea. They cannot be moved into mighty indignation 
like the Apostle Paul ; '^ who is made to stumble and 
I burn not ? " They cannot be constrained into 
passionate love ; " I could wish that myself were 



SECRET OF MORAL PROGRESS 155 

separated from Christ for my brethren/^ They can- 
not be upheaved by sullen sorrow, nor made to dance 
in ecstatic joy. Their emotional life is feeble and 
paltry, and there is no possible storm in the scanty 
stream. Now see the consequence. We must not 
expect much speed where there is little feeling. 
The insensitive are not the strenuous, rather are 
they the victims of sluggishness and sleep. The man 
who has no emotional wealth will never be found 
among the pioneer runners in the moral way. He 
requires enlargement before he can run! And this 
very enlargement is provided for us in the grace of 
God. Nay, more than enlargement is provided for, 
even a new creation. " I will take away the stony 
heart and I will give thee a heart of flesh.'' That 
miracle has been perfoiTQed in innumerable lives. 
Love has been born where indifference reigned, 
self-love has been turned into neighbour-love, and 
neighbour-love has been enlarged and transfigured 
into enemy-love, and this is the full explanation 
of the glorious change — " We love because He 
first loved us." When our selfishness is scooped 
out, there is amazing room for God. He Him- 
self will do the scooping, and He will fill the 
liberated spaces with His own love, and most 
assuredly we shall " run the way of His com- 
mandments '' when He has thus enlarged our 
hearts. 

And so it is also with the third primary element 
in the contents of the heart, the factor of the will. 



156 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

Many of us crawl and faint in the paths of the moral 
ideal because our wills are weak and irresolute. We 
can run for a while, but we fail in the " long run." 
We are good for a hundred yards, but we are spent 
at the mile. We begin well, but the end is very 
near. Our wills are something like the batteries of 
portable electric night-lights, good for so many 
flashes, and good for nothing more. We have voli- 
tional spasms, succeeded by a forceless lethargy. In 
our running we " run down,'^ and our progress is 
stayed. We shall '' run the way '^ of His command- 
ments when God shall enlarge our wills. And — 
that is just one of the wonderful resources of grace. 
"It is God that worketh in you to will/' to enlarge 
your will, to fill it with all needful power, to make 
it adequate to the attainment of the far-off goal. 
We shall be " strengthened with all might by His 
Spirit in the inner man,'' and '' our sufficiency " 
shall be " of God." 

And so we who yearn to run in the way of His 
commandments, who yearn to obtain power and speed 
in the way of the moral ideal, must place ourselves 
in His hands, by the means of prayer and faith and 
consecration. And He will enlarge us! How the 
enlargement may be effected we cannot tell; it may 
be by ministries secret and imperceptible, it may 
be by ministries painful and obtrusive. '' In my 
distress Thou hast enlarged me ! " It may be done 
in the night ! ^' The joy of the Lord shall be your 
strength " j it may be the work of the light of the 



SECRET OF MORAL PROGRESS 157 

morning! However it be, the glorious change 
shall be begotten of God, and '^ His gentleness 
shall make ns great." '' I shall run the way of 
Thy commandments when Thou shalt enlarge my 
heart.'' 



XIV 
THY STRENGTH! MY STRENGTH! 

" Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord ! " — 

Is. li. 9. 

" Awake, awake, put on thy strength, Zion." — Is. lii. 1. 

" Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the 
Lord ! '^ That is the cry of an exiled people to their 
Lord. '^ Awake, awake, put on thy strength, 
Zion! " That is the reply of the Lord to the sup- 
plicating people. A people cry to their Lord to 
awake: the Lord cries to His people to shake them- 
selves from their sleep. Everything seemed to have 
gone against the exile. He had been defeated in 
battle. He had been stripped of his hereditary glory. 
The light of his national renown had been blown 
out. And here he was, languishing in despair, in 
the unlooseable grip of an alien people. Life had no 
longer for him a programme, but only a retrospect, 
no longer a radiant hope, but only a fading reminis- 
cence, no longer an alluring vision, but only a dis- 
tinguished history. There was no longer the East- 
ern light of an eager dawn in his eyes, but only the 
subdued and westerning splendour of a parting day. 
And so here he lay in captivity, and the songs of 
Zion had fled from his lips, and his mouth was 

158 



THY STRENGTH! MY STRENGTH! 159 

filled with wailing and complaint. '' The Lord hath 
forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me/' 
'' Where is He that brought us up out of the sea 
with the shepherd of his flock? Where is He that 
put His Holy Spirit within us ? " And now and 
again the exile half-turned himself in angry, hopeless 
cry, '' Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that 
Thou wouldst come do^vn ! " And again he relapsed 
into the low and cheerless moan : '' My Lord hath 
forgotten me.'^ And yet again he pierced the heaven 
with his searching supplication : ^^ Awake, awake, put 
on Thy strength, O arm of the Lord, as in the ancient 
days, in the generations of old.'' 

What will be the Lord's reply to the cry of the 
exile ? Here it is : '' Awake, awake, put on thy 
strength, O Zion ! " The Divine response is a sharp 
retort. ^^ It is not thy God who sleepeth ! It is 
thou thyself who art wrapt about in a sluggish and 
consuming indolence ! Thou art crying out for more 
strength ; but what of the strength thou hast ? Thy 
trumpet is silent, and thine armour is rusting upon 
the walls ! Thou art like a vagrant asking for help, 
when thou hast a full purse hidden between the 
covers of an idle bed ! Thou art pleading for rein- 
forcements, and thy soldiers are on the couch ! Thy 
prayer is the supplication of a man who is not 
doing his best I Thou sayest, ^ put on strength, O 
arm of the Lord I ' I say to thee, ' Awake, awake, 
put on thy strength, O Zion 1 ' Clothe thyself in 
thy present powers, consecrate thine all to the pur- 



160 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

pose of thy prayer^ and stand forth in battle 
array/' 

I need not say that there is nothing in the Lord's 
response which disparages the ministry of prayer. It 
does, however, tend to put prayer in its right place, 
and to give a true apprehension of its purpose and 
ministry. Prayer is not a talisman, to be used as an 
easy substitute for our activity and vigilance. Prayer 
is a ministry in which our own powers can be quick- 
ened into more vigorous and healthy service. God 
has given us certain endowments. Certain talents 
are part of our original equipment. We are pos- 
sessed of powers of judgment, of initiative, of sym- 
pathy; and the primary implication of all success- 
ful prayer is that these powers are willingly placed 
upon the altar of sacrifice. Any prayer is idle when 
these powers are indolent. If we are pleading with 
the Lord for more strength, it must be on this ground, 
that our present strength is well invested. Is it not 
true that there are many burdens which gall and 
oppress us, both in the individual and the common 
life, and we fervently supplicate God for their re- 
moval, but we do not consecrate our strength to their 
removal ? We too frequently pray to be carried like 
logs, and it is the Lord's will that we should contend 
like men ! If we would have the reinforcements, all 
our forces must be on the field. The condition of 
all efficient and fruitful prayer is the consecration 
of all our strength towards the answer. '' Awake, 
awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord ! " That 



THY STRENGTH! ]MY STRENGTH! 161 

prayer is legitimate and wonder-working if we are 
ready to co-operate with the spirit of the Lord's 
reply, " Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion, 
put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.'' 

Well, now let us look about us. The principle is 
this — our '^ strength " must back our supplications. 
Is the backing always present? Take the matter 
of our personal salvation. A number of professedly 
Christian people are gathered together in the com- 
mon name of the Christ. Every one is conscious 
how immature he is in the Divine life. We know 
how dim is our spiritual discernment. We know 
the flabby limpness of our spiritual grip. We know 
how few and infrequent are our brilliant conquests, 
and how many and common are our shameful de- 
feats. And again and again we supplicate the Al- 
mighty: " Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of 
the Lord ! " Is it possible that the response of the 
Lord may be the retort of the olden days : " Awake, 
awake, put on thy strength, O Zion " ? Is it possible 
that the reinforcements tarry because the forces we 
have are drowsing in the tent '? We pray the Lord 
to make us finer men and women, and to lead us on 
to purer heights, but how many of us put our 
"strength" into the climb? We may put a sigh 
into it, and an occasional tear, and a languid and 
half-melancholy movement, but of how many of us 
can it be said that we have invested our all in the 
business, every ounce of our energy, as the Japanese 
invested every ounce of their energy in the prosecu- 



162 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

tion of the recent war ? We are so prone to divide 
the old psalmist's counsel, and to pay heed to one 
part and to ignore the other. '' Bring unto the Lord 
glory ! '' And so we do ! We bring our Glorias, 
our doxologies, our hymns, and our anthems, and 
we do well, but it is a maimed and lifeless offering 
if, with the glory, we do not bring our strength. 
^^ Bring unto the Lord glory and strength!" It is 
in this gift of strength in our personal religion that 
we are so woefully deficient. We need to bring to our 
religion more strength of common-sense. Why, if 
many men were as thoughtless and haphazard in their 
business, as they are in their personal religion, they 
would be in the bankruptcy court in a year ! I say 
we need stronger service in the matter of our per- 
sonal salvation — more inventiveness, more fertility 
of ideas, more purpose, more steady and methodical 
persistence. And we need to bring a more com- 
manding strength of will. There are some of us 
who, in our business life, move with the decisive 
trend of a bullet in its flight, but who, in the life of 
the closet, saunter in the drooping, uncertain wander- 
ings of a falling feather. More strength, I say, if 
the closet is to become alive with reinforcements from 
the Infinite! So many of us would like to be saints 
without becoming soldiers, and the desire can never 
be attained. Let me tell you a story. It is taken 
from childhood ; and the simplicities of a child often 
reflect the puerilities of the adult. Two little girls 
in the same class, one at the top and the other at 



THY STRENGTH! MY STRENGTH! 163 

the bottom. The one at the bottom consults the 
one at the top. '^ How is it that you are always at 
the top of the class ? '' " Oh, I ask Jesus to help 
me ! '' " Then I will do the same/' said the undis- 
tinguished member, and she forthwith put the coun- 
sel into practice. Next day their relative positions 
were unaltered, one at the top, and the other at the 
bottom. The consultation is renewed. '' I thought 
you said that Jesus would help me, and here I am 
at the bottom again ! " '' Well, so He will, but how 
long did you work ? '' " Oh, I never opened a 
book ! '' ^' Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of 
the Lord ! " '' Awake, awake, put on thy strength," 
little backward pupil ! '^ Work out your own sal- 
vation . . . for it is God that worketh in you." 

Take the matter of the salvation of the home. I 
think I may assume that there is not a father or 
mother reading these pages who has not, in some form 
or another, commended their little ones to the bless- 
ing of Almighty God. We have had our fears. We 
know how soon the wanderings can begin. We know 
how easily a perverse bias can be given to the plastic 
will. And we have interceded for them at the throne 
of grace : '' Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm 
of the Lord ! " Is it possible, again I ask, that the 
Divine response may be a sharp but loving retort: 
^' Put on thy strength " ? Are we putting our 
'^ strength " into the salvation of the home ? Is the 
moral and spiritual pulse in the house strong, vigor- 
ous, and healthy ? How many of us have said to 



164 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

ourselves, in calm but intense determination^ " God 
helping me, this home shall be mightily favourable 
to the making of Christians ! Not to the making of 
prigs — prigs are not begotten of a strong, bracing, 
spiritual climate : prigs are the creation of a luxuri- 
ous and relaxing temperature — this house shall be 
favourable not to the making of prigs, but to the 
making of strong, healthy, wholesome, chivalrous 
saints ! '^ I say, how many of us have registered a 
determination like that, or have such a determination 
implied in the government of our home? I do not 
know a better pattern of a home than Charles Kings- 
ley's, but he brought his strength to its creation. It 
was a home whose moral atmosphere was like the air 
on Alpine heights, a home in which, in all perplexi- 
ties, the only referendum was the Lord Himself, a 
home all of whose ministries were clothed in grace 
and beauty. '^ Put on thy strength, put on thy 
beautiful garments! " I do not seek to make any 
detailed suggestions, I would not presume to do it: 
all I now want is to urge that we back our prayers 
for our children with our own strength, and not 
allow our prayers to be weakened and emasculated by 
our comparative indolence and weakness. It is a 
good investment: it is worth doing; there is nothing 
worthier. I shall never forget hearing a long con- 
versation between two men, one of whom had in- 
quired of the other the size of his family. ^' I have 
ten," he said. ^^ What a responsibility ! " replied the 
other. To which there came at once the glad re- 



THY STRENGTH! AfY STRENGTH! 165 

sponse : " And what a privilege, for they are all 
workers on the side of God.'' Did I not say it is 
worth living for? No higher purpose can govern 
our years. '* Put on thy strength, O Zion! " 

And, lastly, there is the matter of social redemp- 
tion. We are all familiar with the disturbing pres- 
ences in the common life; the wretchedness which 
wraps people about like a chilling and soaking mist : 
the moral pestilence ; the sin which flaunts its naked- 
ness, and the sin which clothes itself in the garb of 
virtue ; the sorrow that cries, and the sorrow that has 
no cry; the clean and the grimy poverty; the omni- 
present pain. How often have we prayed for the 
city: '" Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of the 
Lord ! '' And still, I think, there comes the Divine 
retort, " Put on thy strength, O Zion ! " " Thy 
armour is rusting in the armoury ! Thy resources 
are wasting in indolence and neglect! Use the 
strength thou hast before pleading for more ! Rein- 
forcements came to soldiers on the field! The five 
talents used shall become ten ! Put on thy 
strength ! " That is our Lord's response to us to-day 
in this work of social and national redemption. We 
abuse the privilege of prayer when we make it a 
minister of personal evasion and neglect. The 
prayer of the lips is only acceptable when it is 
accompanied by the strength of the hands. Have 
we put our ** strength " into it ? Are we supplicat- 
ing for the removal of burdens when already we 
ourselves have strength to remove them i Let us look 



166 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



1 



about us. There is the sin of the city. A burden? 
Oh, yes, a crushing burden. A mystery? Yes, an 
unfathomable mystery. Shall we pray about it ? Oh, 
yes, let us pray mightily, but only if we are willing 
to mightily consecrate our strength; do not let us 
presume to appeal to the arm of the Lord if there 
be no weapon in our hands. How is it with drunk- 
enness ? Can we honestly say that we have put our 
strength into our attack? To put on one's strength 
may just mean to put off one's coat ! Will anybody 
assert for a moment that we have put our strength 
into the business, and by negative and positive min- 
istries sought the sobriety of our people ? " Put on 
thy strength, O Zion ! '' How is it with gambling ? 
We all admit it to be a subtle disease in the body 
politic, secretly consuming the manhood and the 
womanhood of the realm. We all admit its ravages, 
among peer and peasant, the millionaire and the 
pauper. And I saw the other day that a prayer- 
meeting was called to supplicate God for our de- 
livery ! It is well to appeal to the arm of the Lord, 
but have we used the strength we have? Can we 
truthfully say we have used the weapons we have, 
and they have broken in our hands, and are alto- 
gether inefficient and useless ? Or, again, I ask, are 
our weapons rusting in the hall ? Do we not know 
that if to-morrow we were to make the publication of 
betting news illegal, one half the gambling in the 
land would cease ? Why not try the weapon before 
falling in an assumedly impotent prostration before 



THY STRENGTH! MY STRENGTH! 167 

the Lord ? Let us come to the prayer-meeting with 
the weapons in oiir hands, and consecrate them to the 
service of the kingdom, and do not let us assimie an 
impotence when part of our present resources are 
still unused — " Put on thy strength, O Zion ! " And 
how is it with poverty? The grim, gaunt thing is 
in our midst, squalid, ominous, terrible I " Yes, 
where is God to allow it i '' '' Awake, awake, put on 
strength, O arm of the Lord ! '' '" Where is God to 
allow it ? '' Nay, nay, there is a prior question. 
Where are we to allow it ? " Put on thy strength, 
Zion I '' Have we put our strength into it, every 
ounce of it ? It may be that, when we have ex- 
hausted all our resources, something of poverty may 
still remain. It may be so, but do not let us argue 
about the perpetuity of the thing while our possible 
resources are slumbering in dishonourable neglect. 
It may be that, when we have done all, something of 
drunkenness may remain, and something of lust 
may remain, and something of poverty may remain; 
but what a plea we shall have with God, and how 
mighty will be our supplication, when we can come 
to Him and say: '* God, our armoury is empty, 
our reserves are all called out, our last man is on 
the field, our ammunition is spent, and the enemy 
still boasts himself in our midst ! Awake, awake, 
put on thy strength, O arm of the Lord ! " I say 
that kind of prayer would shake the very heavens, 
and we should have as our eager and willing allies 
the innimierable hosts of the eternal God. 



168 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

'And so let us never forget that, when we pray for 
the salvation of the world, it is implied that we will 
put our strength into the cleansing and sweetening 
of our own little corner of the world. There is no 
true prayer without a full consecration. 



XV 

BOLDNESS 

" When they beheld the boldness of Peter and John . . .1 
they marvelled." — Acts iv. 13. 

We have accomplished something when we make 
the world wonder ! To break up its frigid indiffer- 
ence, to shake it out of its customary drowsiness, to 
startle it into an open-eyed surprise is to commence 
a ministry which may issue in fruitful worship. 
Wonder may occasion curiosity, curiosity is fre- 
quently the mother of reverence, reverence is the 
secret of devotion. When we have elicited men's 
wonder, we have taken the first step to making them 
pray. What was it which excited the world's 
wonder ? " When they beheld the boldness of Peter 
and John." That is a very wealthy word, a word 
not suggestive of any one particular element, but of 
a whole treasury of spiritual content. It means pres- 
ence of mind. It means freedom of speech. It 
means outspokenness almost to the point of blunt- 
ness. The men whom the world was contemplating 
had nothing about them of the panic-stricken. Their 
words were not stammered in fearful uncertainty. 
They did not indulge in weak and mincing ambigui- 
ties. They did not hide the strength of their testi- 
mony in the courtier's finesse. The outlines of their 

169 



170 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



I 



character and confession were not dim and broken 
like the lineaments of some hazy moor; they stood 
out, clear and decisive, like the carved sky-line of a 
mountain range, or like the rocky headlands of a bold 
and well-defined coast. " When they beheld the 
boldness . . . they marvelled." 

And who were the men upon whom this masculine 
grace was found ? " When they beheld the boldness 
of Peter/' That is an astonishing conjunction ! It 
is one of the phrases which describe the wonderful 
ministry of grace. It records a gospel miracle. I 
know that our hardest rocks, the igneous rocks, are 
just transformed mud, mud that has passed through 
the ministry of terrific fire. And here is Simon 
Peter, once as yielding as mud, not bearing a 
feather's weight, but now having passed through the 
discipline of fiame, the fire of an intense affection, 
he is firm and irresistible as rock. '' Thou also wast 
one of His disciples ! '' . . . ^^ I know not the 
man ! " That is the yielding mud ! And it is this 
man, transformed in the very fibres of his being, 
who now arrests the thoughtless indifference of the 
world, and by the spectacle of a magnificent boldness 
startles it into a great surprise. " When they beheld 
the boldness of Peter they marvelled." 

"'And of John!'' I cannot say that the artist's 
John very frequently conveys to me a sufficient con- 
ception of the bosom-friend of Christ. The artist 
usually figures him as of mild and gentle counte- 
nance, with far-away dreamy eyes, and of most 



BOLDNESS 171 

effeminate mien. Well, I think that any true por- 
traiture of John must include some of these things : 
there must be a suggestion of mysticism, and in the 
face there must be a large and winsome gentleness 
to which we feel we could expose our wounds and 
our broken hearts; but the gentleness must not be 
effeminate^ it must be strong and masculine, and in 
the face must be charactered elements with which the 
flippant could no more trifle than he could play with 
fire. If John is light he is also lightning! ^^ And 
he surnamed them Boanerges, the sons of thunder ! '^ 
Perhaps the character of the apostle John might find 
its appropriate symbol in a lovely dale in Derby- 
shire through which I have often strolled. There 
are the soft, sweet, grassy slopes, a welcome delicacy 
for tired feet; but, rising sheer out of the luscious 
green there tower the bare, stern, rocky crags, re- 
vealing to us the character of the hidden founda- 
tions in which even the quiet springy turf finds its 
bed and rest. John leaned on the Master's breast; 
he went to Patmos for his faith ! " When they 
beheld the boldness of Peter and John . . . they 
marvelled." 

This boldness was a phenomenon. They could not 
fit it into any of the current explanations. It was 
clear that it was not the product of the schools. It 
was not the fruit of culture. They '' "perceived that 
they were unlearned and ignorant men." '' Un- 
learned ! '' Yes, that was most evident ! Even their 
dress gave evidence of their illiteracy. They lacked 



172 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



1 



the academic gown. They did not wear the impos- 
ing robe of the scribe. Why, even in their very 
attire, the contrast between them and the rabbi was 
something like the contrast between a Cromer fisher- 
man and an Oxford don ! " Unlearned ! '^ Cer- 
tainly ; their accent betrayed them ! The roughness 
of the provincial dialect still clung to their untutored 
tongues. They lacked the gloss and finish of the 
schools. '' Unlearned ! " Certainly, the very sub- 
jects and emphases of rabbinical learning found no 
place in their speech. But more than '' unlearned/' 
they were ^^ ignorant '' men! The original word 
which lies behind this term " ignorant " is our Eng- 
lish word '' idiots." I do not say that it has the 
intensity of meaning which attaches to the word 
to-day, but even in that earlier day it had acquired 
the trend which has landed it in its present applica- 
tion. " Ignorant,'^ as here employed, means a silly 
person, a mere layman as opposed to a ranked official, 
a quack as compared with a skilled physician. They 
could not fit these men anywhere into the hierarchy 
of official teachers, and so they relegated them to the 
ranks of the unrecognised, the mere quacks, and 
labelled them " unlearned and ignorant men." And 
yet here the men stood, with fine spiritual serenity, 
with an unshaken strength of assurance, with a firm 
definiteness of thought, with an unwonted precision 
of speech, and a magnificent irresistibleness of life! 
Schooled or unschooled this had to be accounted for ! 
Fisherman or rabbi this character demanded expla- 



BOLDNESS 173 

nation! Here was the simple meadow, but here 
too was the grand, out- jutting height of splendid 
crag ! How explain it ? '' When they beheld the 
boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they 
were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled." 
What was the explanation of this character which 
so perplexed the world ? You must turn back to the 
eighth verse, and you will find the secret. ^^ Then 
Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost!" That is the 
explanation of the boldness. It is Peter plus the 
Infinite ! A man who is filled with God can be none 
other than bold. It is as natural for him to be bold 
as it is for others to be craven, as natural to be 
decisive as for others to be limp. But pause by the 
word " filled." The entire emphasis gathers there. 
It is a picturesque word. It was the word that was 
used when the net was crammed with fishes. It was 
the word that was used when all the holes were 
levelled up, and the way was made even and plain. 
It was the word that was used when a substance had 
been steeped and soaked in the dye, and every strand 
and thread in the fabric had received the requisite 
hue. And this word, with these large inclusive 
relationships, is the word used to describe the in- 
filling of these men with the Spirit of God. They 
were filled with the Spirit like a crammed net. 
Every gap and lack in their being was levelled up by 
the Spirit, and the whole life was even and sym- 
metrical. And every tissue and fibre in mind and 
heart and soul was steeped in the Spirit, and dyed 



174 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

into one all-pervasive and heavenly hue. '' Then 
Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost ! '^ Do you won- 
der that he was bold, and startled the onlooker? 
Why are we not bold? Because the filling is only 
partial. We touch God on one side and not on 
another. While these words were being written I 
passed from my study for a moment to another room 
in the house, passed from sunshine into comparative 
twilight, and from warmth into comparative cold. 
The transition is symbolic of the change one fre- 
quently experiences in passing from one side of a 
man's life to another. You touch him here, and he 
is sunny with God's presence ; you touch him there, 
and you are struck with the chills of a cold night- 
wind. If we were filled with the Spirit, if every 
room in the great temple of the life was pervaded 
with heavenly light and heat, it would be possible to 
move from one room to another without any per- 
ceptible ,change of temperature. Life has many 
faculties, and our trouble often is that some are 
filled, and some are unfilled with the Spirit of God. 
Sometimes the conscience is God-filled, but not the 
affections. Sometimes the faculty of benevolence has 
the heavenly light, but not the imagination. Some- 
times the emotions are consecrated, but not the reason 
and judgment. Life has many relationships, rela- 
tionships in worship, in work, in recreation, relation- 
ships in the family, in society, in the State, and if 
we were " filled with the Holy Ghost " we could pass 
from one relationship to another, find God's light in 



BOLDNESS 175 

all, and there would be nothing '^ hid from the heat 
thereof.'' It is the partial filling which is the peril 
of the Christian life. It is the unfilled faculty which 
makes the indecisive life. It is the unhallowed re- 
lationship which makes the entire being limp and 
faint. When we open to God only a little we give 
immense advantages to the devil. It is the partial 
opening that makes the perilous draught; there are 
no draughts in the open air, where God's sweet air 
enwraps us about on every side. We must become 
enswathed, enveloped in the Holy Spirit, and allow 
every faculty and every relationship to be bathed in 
His gracious flood. Open yourself out to the In- 
finite, and you will put on strength and majesty like 
a robe ! Become '^ filled " and you cannot help be- 
ing bold! ^^ And while they were yet praying the 
place was shaken wherein they were gathered to- 
gether ; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, 
and they spake the word of God with boldness." 

There is great and peculiar need of this apostolic 
" boldness " to-day. The times imperatively demand 
the military attitude in the soul. The Christian 
character must be conspicuous for strength, intelli- 
gence, decisiveness, attack. Whatever may be al- 
lowed to lie in obscurity, or hidden away in secret 
and mystical depths, the masculinity of Christian 
discipleship must stand out in bold and flaming re- 
lief. I do not fear the serried hosts and hordes of 
organised devilry if only the temper of the Church is 
steeled for the fray. There is nothing in the might 



176 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

and majesty of the foe to make us dismayed, but we 
do need to fear a soft and limp and flaccid Chris- 
tianity. How do we stand in the matter ? Can we 
say that the great characteristic of our modern dis- 
cipleship is its boldness, and that by the very vim 
and pulse of our living we arrest the world in won- 
der? I must express my fear that we are creating 
vast numbers of pulpy Christians who are destitute 
of strong backbone. I regard with grave forebod- 
ing the encroachment of an effeminate streak in 
Christian character which is imperilling its robust- 
ness. Christian men and women of to-day do not sit 
down to the good, square, solid Biblical meals in 
which our fathers revelled in the generations past. 
We have fallen upon the days of scraps, and snaps, 
and chips : everything has to be reduced to the tit-bit, 
and we ignore the firm and solid loaf. How can we 
expect robustness from such diet? If the Christian 
Endeavour movement has a peril — and I speak not as 
one who looks in at its window, but as one who sits 
down at its table — its peril consists in the infre- 
quency of the solid meal. When I look at the table I 
sometimes fear for the muscle. I confess that I 
would sometimes like to see larger joints upon the 
table, and larger supplies of wholemeal bread, with 
a fine hard crust to ensure mastication. Depend 
upon it, our diet has much to do with our persist- 
ence, the furnishing of our table determines the 
temper of the battlefield. One of the great cities 
of our island was recently concerned with the softness 



BOLDNESS 177 

of the children's limbs. Their limbs were threaded 
with bending gristle rather than with firm and well- 
knit bone. And what is the explanation ? That the 
water they drink is too soft, destitute of the harder 
elements, lacking the lime which goes to the making 
of bone. And in the Christian life, when the bones 
are too soft and gristly, or when the backbone is 
altogether wanting, the cause may frequently be 
found in too soft a water-supply, in the ignoring of 
the harder and severer elements of Christian truth. 
The water of Calvinism was hard, hard enough, but 
it made bone, fine bone, bone that never would bend, 
bone that could only be broken! We must see to 
it that our water is not too soft, that our diet be not 
too snippety, that we acquire enough iron and lime 
to give strength and consistency to our character, and 
to display naturally the unflinching boldness which 
makes the world wonder. 

'' When they beheld the boldness ! '' That is the 
character with which we must confront the world. 
We need to display boldness of assurance. Mark 
the bold and magnificent moral sense of these inspired 
apostles : — " And they called them, and commanded 
them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of 
Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto 
them, Whether it be right ! '' Their conscience 
pealed out bold as thunder in the midnight! That 
is the peal which staggers the world. We must not 
muffle our consciences. We must not give them opi- 
ates, and sink them into a perilous sleep. Surely 



178 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

that is not an irrelevant word in these days of multi- 
plied pledges! Every pledge I take may put iron 
into my conscience^ or it may narcotise it into deeper 
sleep. I pledge myself that I will pray every day, 
that I will read the Bible every day, or I pledge 
myself that I will plead for missionaries every day ; 
or I pledge myself that I will speak to some one 
about the Master every day; and so on, and so on! 
The sphere is great, the ministry is splendid, but 
the peril is immediate. Every unworthy excuse for 
the non-fulfilment of the pledge is the application of 
an opiate to the conscience; it directly tends to 
silence the warder on the hill, and the bold, clear 
bugle-peal dies away from the heights. But let 
this, too, be said as the expression of the same in- 
vincible law : every time a worthy pledge is worthily 
kept, the warder on the hill becomes more vigilant, 
his clarion becomes more clear, and it will ring out 
before the world as once, in my native town, in a 
night of general festivity, when the bells were clang- 
ing from every steeple, I heard the firebell ring out 
above all other sounds, announcing that a destructive 
fire was burning even in the season of prevailing 
feast. Keep your conscience bold ! Look after the 
bell-chamber ! Let it be filled with the Holy Ghost ! 
^'When they beheld the boldness . . . they mar- 
velled.'' 

And we need to display boldness of will. Look 
again at these Spirit-filled men. " Let us straitly 
threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man 



BOLDNESS 179 

in this name." . . . "" We cannot hut speak/' 
How magnificent the response ! They felt their wills 
to be caught in the sweeping current of the Infinite ! 
They were impelled by a mighty imperative, con- 
strained by an all-encompassing and irresistible 
necessity. " We cannot but speak ! " Martin Lu- 
ther was not far away from apostolic ways when 
he, too, made similar response to similar threaten- 
ings. " I can do no other, God help me ! " That 
is the boldness we need in the warehouse, the shop, 
the office, the street, and the field. '' I can do no 
other, God help me ! " A temper like that, quiet, 
firm, bold, irresistible, would bewilder your antag- 
onist and make him limp as water. 

'^ My lads," said ISTapoleon to a regiment of horse, 
'^ you must not fear death : when soldiers brave 
death they drive him into the enemy's ranks." And 
we, too, when we are bold and unflinching, send panic 
and confusion into the lines of the enemy. " Be ye 
steadfast, unmovable." '' He will not suffer thy 
foot to be moved." '' The righteous are bold as a 
lion." 

And so I call all, men and boys, the matron and 
the maid, to this temper of holy boldness. Yes, 
the matron and the maid ! I recall the sacred name 
of Anne Askew, who was cruelly racked in order 
to extort from her a base confession. She refused 
to yield, although her limbs were so dislocated that 
when condemned to be burnt alive she could not 
stand, and was carried in a chair to Smithfield, where 



180 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

she underwent her death with undaunted courage. 
Yes, and men and boys ! For I recall the name of 
John Bunyan, condemned for twelve years to Bed- 
ford Gaol because he persisted in being true to him- 
self. He left his wife and children^ though it almost 
broke his heart to leave the one who was blind. 
" I must venture you all with God, though it goeth 
to the quick to leave you! I must do it! I must 
do it ! " " When they beheld the boldness " of Anne 
Askew and John Bunyan, '' they marvelled ! '' 

'' They took knowledge of them that they had been 
with Jesus.'^ That is imperfectly stated. It leaves 
out the essential secret. " They had been with 
Jesus ? '' N'ay, iliey were with Jesus ! '^ I fear no 
foe with Thee at hand to bless." '' God is our 
refuge and strength, a very present help in time of 
trouble. Therefore will not we fear though the 
earth be removed, and though the mountains be 
shaken in the heart of the seas.'' " The Lord of 
hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge 



» 



XVI 
MEN OF VIOLENCE 

'* The Kingdom of Heaven suflfereth violence, and men of 
violence take it by force." — Matt. xi. 12. 

'' And men of violence take it hy force/' That is 
a most vehement and impetuous figure. We must 
realise the intensity and the daring of it if we would 
appreciate the Master's teaching. " Men of violence 
take it by force.'' It is almost suggestive of a de- 
termined burglary, the swift and terrific seizure of 
imprisoned treasure. It is significant of an obsti- 
nate and venturesome siege, the carrying of bristling 
forts by storm. '' Men of violence take it by force ! " 
The Japanese did not saunter into Port Arthur by 
easy and luxurious paths; they entered the strong- 
hold at the cost of passionate and exhausting per- 
sistence, along a stiff and bloody way. " The King- 
dom of Heaven suffereth violence, and men of vio- 
lence take it by force." 

Is this our familiar conception of the pilgrim- 
band ? Do we commonly regard them as a storming 
party, winning height after height of the promised 
inheritance ? Is this the popular figure of Christian 
disciples — " men of violence " taking positions by 
storm? There are other figures of speech which I 
think fill the popular mind. '' Blessed are the poor 

181 



182 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." 
But how far removed from the spirit of violence, and 
how little likely to capture a height by storm! 
" Poor in spirit " — " men of violence '' — we fail at 
the reconciliation of the figures ! '' Blessed are the 
meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'^ But is 
meekness synonymous with violence? Is meekness 
a spirit of rush and vehemence and holy daring ? I 
think that when we commonly think of the pilgrim 
hosts, treading the way to the celestial city, it is with 
quite other forms and colours that our imagination 
works. Our " meek '^ man has nothing about him 
of the burglar. Our man of the " poor spirit '^ is 
not taking a battlement by storm. The fact of the 
matter is, our conception of the passive virtues needs 
to be vitalised, energised, and we need to remember 
that even the passive virtues of the Christian life 
have a core of tremendous purpose, and in the light 
and heat of that burning, passionate purpose they 
must be interpreted. We associate meekness with 
reserve, timidity, shrinking; rarely do we link it 
with the strong and fearless advances of a Gapon, 
the terrible, fiery invective of a Savonarola, or the 
dashing magnetic leadership of a Garibaldi. Meek- 
ness without passion is worthless. Poverty of spirit, 
divorced from strength and daring, will never plant 
a standard on the heights of the new Jerusalem. 
In the true man of the Kingdom, meekness com- 
prehends the spirit of violence, and the poor in 
spirit are tremendous and invincible. John Bunyan 



MEN OF VIOLENCE 183 

was a meek man, a man of great poverty of spirit, a 
man of profound and penitential humility, watering 
his couch with his tears; but let some law of the 
land, or some magistrate in whom the law was in- 
carnate, stride across the heavenward way, and im- 
pede the pilgrim^s advance, and the meekness as- 
sumed the guise of resistance, and the tearful peni- 
tent prepared to take the position by storm. Oliver 
Cromwell was a meek man, the child of many timidi- 
ties and many fears, with his head often bowed in 
self-abasement, and hiding low at the place of mercy 
and redeeming love ; but let king or Parliament lay 
hands upon the crown rights of the Lord, and meek- 
ness reveals its hidden fires, and the Kingdom of 
Heaven must be taken by storm. That is ever the 
characteristic of the true child of the Kingdom. The 
children of the Kingdom are distinguished by force 
of character, by available passion, by the power 
of unflinching persistence, by the determination to 
recapture the strongholds of sin, and to plant upon 
their heights the banner of the Lord. ^' The King- 
dom of Heaven suffereth violence, and men of vio- 
lence take it by force.'^ Our Lord came to make 
strong men. 

Now, force of character is not always a pure and 
elevating energy. There are many forceful charac- 
ters found in the way of sin who find their bourn in 
the gaol and on the scaffold. I always conceive 
Judas Iscariot to have been a man of commanding 
force of character^ who in any society would most 



184 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

naturally have moved to the front. His vigour, his 
determination, his singleness of purpose, his passion 
— all alike distinguished him from the common 
throng. No one could come near the man without 
recognising the full-charged battery of his person- 
ality. He had force enough, but it was perverse. 
No one will question that Lady Macbeth was a woman 
of most wealthy force of character. She is the most 
commanding figure in the entire tragedy. She moves 
to her purpose with enormous energy, with passion- 
ate vehemence, with intense and concentrated deci- 
sion. Is this man in the way ? Murder him ! And 
that one? Do the like with him! She moves to 
her ends like a rolling stream of lava, and ruin and 
desolation fill her ways. These are types of forceful 
character, men and women of violence, destructive 
violence, endowed with personal energies like the 
hidden forces of the planet. 

Now, when the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sovereign 
of the Kingdom, comes to men and women like these, 
and His offer of friendship and redemption is ac- 
cepted, what happens? He does not destroy their 
force. He transforms it. They are not deprived of 
their violence, it is only sublimed. If in the midst 
of that great tragedy to which I have referred, the 
tragic note had ceased, and by some marvellous min- 
istry Lady Macbeth had been brought under the 
mighty powers of redeeming grace, what would have 
been the character of the change? Would that 
strong, full-flavoured, full-blooded woman have be- 



MEN OF VIOLENCE 185 

come tame and insipid^ just cooing away like mild 
doves in the cote? Oh, no! She would have re- 
mained violent still, passionate still, resolute still, 
forceful still, but with all the energy transformed, 
the fires purged and purified, and instead of remain- 
ing a callous murderess, carving her selfish way to 
place and power, she would have become a Joan of 
Arc, leading others to privilege and freedom. No, 
her guns would not have been spiked or destroyed; 
they would have been transferred to the other side! 
The energy used in the Kingdom of Darkness would 
be now enlisted in the .Kingdom of Light. Let me 
give you a sample of this gracious transformation. 
Here is violence, if you will have it ! " Saul, yet 
breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the 
disciples of the Lord." There you have force enough, 
violence enough ! What will you do with this man ? 
Will you just put out his fires and make him like a 
damped-down furnace? Or will you let him retain 
his passions, only purified and glorified? That is 
what happened. N'ot one jot of force did this man 
lose in his transference to the Kingdom. He 
brought all his guns with him, only they were now 
directed against the strongholds of the devil, and in 
the love and interest of the Kingdom of God. Ay, 
when the Lord comes to the violent. He covets their 
strength, and retains it in the ministry of His word 
and life. '' Simon, Simon! Satan hath desired to 
have thee '^ ; he covets that passion of thine, that 
magnificent impulse of thine; but so does thy Mas- 



186 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



1 



ter ; ^^ and I have prayed for thee, that thy faith 
fail not ! " The Lord will conserve our forces, and 
make them ministers of righteousness, for " the 
Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and men of 
violence take it by force.'^ 

But what happens when men and women have no 
force of character, no distinguishing violence, when 
their basilar capacity is weak, when they are '' wishy- 
washy,'^ nerveless, and impotent — what happens 
when men and women of this type enter into com- 
munion and covenant with the Lord ? This happens : 
The Lord, who transforms the force of the violent, 
imparts force to the impotent. There is nothing 
more sure than this, that when the lordship and 
friendship of the King is honestly and sincerely 
accepted, the fellowship begets within the soul the 
energy of a powerful life. If such strength is no^ 
begotten, the strength of a storming party, it is 
because our communion is defective, and our sur- 
render is incomplete. I remember that great figure 
used by our Lord in the fourth chapter of St. John ? 
^' The water that I shall give him shall be in him a 
well." It is the difference between a vessel of water 
and a spring, between a cistern and a river. There 
is little or no energy in a jug of water, but who can 
measure the dynamics of a spring ? '' The water 
that I shall give him shall be in him a well ! " When 
the Lord comes into the life, energy is born, move- 
ment begins, rivers flow ! '' A well ! '' I say that 
the figure suggests the impartation of inexhaustible 



MEN OF VIOLENCE 187 

energy, life with unfathomable resource; it portrays 
the transition from impotence to violence, from pas- 
sionless existence to a rushing, dashing exuberance 
that takes the Kingdom by storm. 

And have I not seen it done times without num- 
ber? Have I not seen the ignobly passionless be- 
come the nobly passionate? Have I not seen the 
Lord make His violent men? Let me name some 
of the elements I have seen added to life bv the min- 
istry of redeeming grace, and we will judge whether 
these do not furnish the equipment of strong and 
triumphant men. The Lord imparts to weak men 
and women decisiveness of aim. Life detaches itself 
from a multiplicity of distractions and gathers 
strength by its own intensity. A man of one book is 
not to be despised. A man of one idea may overturn 
a commonwealth. A man of one commanding 
spiritual ambition shall sit with the Lord on His 
throne. " This one thing I do," and in the strength 
of that concentration all impotence is left behind. 
The Lord imparts to weak and passionless men and 
women the energy of strong and lively feelings. 
Says John Calvin: '^ The Gospel awakens powerful 
emotions." And so it does ! You have only to turn 
to our hymn book, to its great expressions of peni- 
tence, devotion and praise, to see how the feelings of 
men are deepened and swayed by the marvellous con- 
straints of redeeming love. Sometimes the feelings 
are tossed like a troubled sea at midnight, and again 
they move in radiant triumph like a glorious swell 



188 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

in the light of the moon. Yes^ when the Lord comes 
into the life, the deeps are broken up, and the passion 
of the soul gains liberty and enrichment. And 
further still, the Lord imparts to impotent men the 
strength that comes from the harmonising of the 
powers, the unity of the individual estate. The in- 
dividual life so frequently suffers the nature of an 
insurrection. There is no unanimity in the soul. 
Our powers are discordant, fighting at loggerheads, 
and we are pulled a dozen different ways. Many 
men's souls are like an orchestral band before the 
conductor appears. Every instrument goes on jour- 
neys of its own proposing, and the result is Bedlam. 
And some men's souls are like an orchestra when 
the conductor has appeared ; the individual liberty is 
ended, and all the instruments co-operate in most 
harmonious ministry. When the great Conductor 
comes into the soul, harmony reigns, and '' all that 
is within me " blesses and praises God's holy name. 
And lastly, the Lord imparts to impotent souls the 
saving attribute of courage. Courage is sorely 
smitten when the powers of the soul are divided. 
When the powers of the soul are one, a man puts on 
courage like a robe. 

Are not these elements which I have named the 
equipment of strong and triumphant men — decisive- 
ness of aim, energy of feeling, the harmony of the 
powers, and the contagious attribute of courage ? 
I say, on the authority of the Word of God, and 
by the testimony of human experience, that this is 



MEN OF VIOLENCE 189 

the character the Lord creates, strong men endowed 
with healthy passions, brave men who move irre- 
sistibly to well-defined ends, " men of violence/' who 
'' take the Kingdom of Heaven by force." 

" The men of violence take it by force ! " Yes, 
the success of our warfare lies in our taking the 
offensive. There is nothing so trying to the morale 
and endurance of troops as to be compelled to be for 
ever awaiting an attack. The moral advantage is 
invariably with the offensive. '' The men of violence 
take it by force." The weakness of so many is to 
be found just here; they are always on the defen- 
sive, and they never join the storming-party. They 
do not '^ go out," like the chivalrous knights from 
Arthur's table, '^ redressing human wrongs." They 
await the enemy's coming, they do not meet him on 
the way. In this high warfare it is the storming 
forces who win. '' The men of violence take it by 
force." Let us join the offensive forces, and in the 
very offence discover our security. " Then the Inter- 
preter took him, and led him up toward the door of 
the palace; and behold, at the door stood a great 
company of men, as desirous to go in, but durst not. 
There also sat a man at a little distance from the 
door, at a tableside, with a book and his ink-horn 
before him, to take the name of him that should 
enter therein ; he saw also that in the doorway stood 
many men in armour to keep ii, being resolved to 
do to the men that would enter what hurt and mis- 
chief they could. At last, when every man started 



190 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

back for fear of the armed men, Christian saw a 
man of a very stout countenance come up to the 
man that sat there to write, saying : ^ Set down my 
name, sir ' ; the which, when he had done, he saw 
the man draw his sword, and put a helmet upon his 
head, and rush toward the door upon the armed men, 
who laid upon him with deadly force, but the man, 
not at all discouraged, fell to cutting and hacking 
most fiercely. So that, after he had received and 
given many wounds to those that attempted to keep 
him out, he cut his way through them all, and 
pressed forward into the palace; at which there was 
a pleasant voice heard from, those that were within, 
even of those that walked upon the top of the palace, 
saying— 

*Come in! Come in! 
Eternal glory thou shalt Trin."* 

" The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and 
the men of violence take it by force/^ 

"From strength to strength go on. 
Wrestle, and fight, and pray. 
Tread all the powers of darkness down 
And win the well- fought day." 



xvn 

PLOUGH-WORK 

"And Jesus said, Xo man having put his hand to the 
plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God." 

Luke ix. 62. 

^' His hand to the plough ! '^ The Master did not 
use the figure heedlessly. It was not one of a hun- 
dred possible figures, any one of which would have 
served His purpose as well as the others. It was 
carefully chosen, to express the emphasis of the 
immediate need. " His hand to the plough ! " The 
plough-work of the Kingdom! Ploughing is the 
heaviest work in the toil of the field. Sowing the 
seed is a comparatively easy ministry ; by the side of 
ploughing it is a time of recreation. Reaping is 
associated with warmth and triumph, and is per- 
vaded with the light-hearted song of the harvest- 
home. But ploughing is heavy, laborious work ; it is 
concerned with the disturbance of the commonplace, 
the breaking up of the hard, familiar surface, the 
pulverising and loosing of the impermeable mass, 
and the exposing of the hidden depths of the light 
and air and dews and rains of the upper world. 
Ay, ploughing is a strenuous labour, primary and 
fundamental. And so it is in the Kingdom of God. 
Sowing the seed may demand no shedding of blood: 

191 



192 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

it may be as unexacting as the telling of a pleasant 
story, or a cheery conversation by the fire-side. But 
to drive your share through the conventional, to 
overturn the traditional, to pulverise a hard and 
hoary custom, to break up the popular and well- 
trodden expediency, to expose the subsoil of a com- 
monplace, to disturb the superficialities and external- 
ities of human life, and to bring to bear upon the hid- 
den depths the light and air and moisture of heaven — 
all this is labour demanding bloody sweat, the heavi- 
est work in the Kingdom of God. You may drop 
a seed upon the way-side, it will do no harm, but 
touch the common ground with your plough, and 
there are ten thousand guardians of the traditional, 
massed together in the common resistance of change. 
There seems to be a deep conservative streak in 
everybody, and instinctively we linger fondly upon 
the old — the old home, despite its inconveniences 
and its smaller rooms, the old hymn-book, the old 
form of service, the old way in the office — a fond 
clinging to the venerable, and I think the adhesion 
is frequently legitimate, healthy and good. But that 
same conservatism is frequently found buttressing an 
abuse, and it is often our passionate dislike of a 
change and disturbance which constitutes the strong- 
est enemy of progress. There is a familiar saying 
in Yorkshire that the more you disturb a rubbish 
heap the ranker is the offence, and the proverb is 
always quoted in defence of the stationary, and in 
opposition to any policy of advancement. Now the 



PLOUGH-WORK 193 

ploughshare is the minister of change, of disturb- 
ance, of upheaval, and the heavenly ploughman is 
confronted by ten thousand massed antagonisms which 
invest his labour with all the dignity of a chivalrous 
crusade. Plough-work is therefore very heavy work, 
pioneer work, often very lonely work, and, taken 
altogether, the most exacting work in the Kingdom 
of God. " No man, having put his hand to the 
plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom 
of God.'^ 

Who were these disciples to whom these warning 
words were spoken? None of them were men of 
recognised culture, or of wealth, or of conspicuous 
rank. But, once settled down to their work, they 
proved themselves to be men of masculine hand- 
grip, of magnificent tenacity of purpose, who, once 
they had begun upon a field, would see the furrow 
through. And to what unpromising stretches of land 
they had to turn their plough! Just think of two 
or three of the iron-bound fields to which the early 
apostles had got to put their hands. There was the 
field of Jewish traditionalism. Why, it was like 
trying to plough a field of brass. It had been made 
hard and unreceptive by the formalisms of a score 
of generations, and it wore the superficial sheen of 
a shallow and polished Pharisaism. No harder field 
has the ploughman of the Kingdom ever faced. And 
yet to this field he must direct his plough; he must 
turn up the subsoil of its formal and legalised life, 
he must pulverise its prejudices, and he must expose 



194 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

its innermost and better depths to the fertilising 
ministry of God's redeeming grace. What a work 
it was! What a terrific disturbance it involved! 
The ploughman who attempts it shall be beaten with 
the flail from his own threshing-floor ! " In the 
world ye shall have tribuation, but be of good cheer, 
I have overcome the world.'' 

And there was the field of Grecian aestheticism. 
Think of Athens as a sphere for the Christian 
ploughman. You have refinement, you have accom- 
plishments, you have a stately and luxurious ease, 
but you have no healthy, bounding vitality in the 
secret depths of the life. At this time Athens was 
not a living heart, but a polished stone. And to this 
field the ploughman of the Kingdom had to come, 
with his ministry of upheaval, turning up the deeper 
self, stirring up the deeper hunger and the deeper 
thirst. And the ploughman came, and he came of 
an inferior people, and from a distant and obscure 
province, and he drove his share into the benumbed 
life of this astonished people. Astonished ? Yes, 
as princes and elders were astonished in Bethel, when 
the herdman Amos came from the hamlet Tekoa, 
and drove the share of prophetic warning into their 
soddened and luxurious life; astonished, as Sir 
Philip Warwick and many others were astonished, 
when a farmer named Oliver Cromwell came from 
Huntingdon, and stood amid the refinements of the 
English Parliament, stood there, " in a plain cloth 
suit, made by an ill country tailor," and spake to the 



PLOUGH-WORK 195 

assembled representatives " with voice sharp and 
untunable, but with eloquence full of fervour." So 
came there a ploughman to hard and polished Athens, 
" one whose bodily presence was weak and con- 
temptible/' but who, in the strength of the Spirit of 
God, drove his awakening evangel into the very- 
depths of her secret need. 

And there was the field of Roman materialism. 
What a piece of land for the plough — hardened by- 
power, by wealth, by pomp, by victory ! And there 
came a ploughman! He came along the Appian 
way, but, as if to make his weakness still more 
manifest, he came not as a freeman, but in the 
custody of an Imperial guard. And yet he came to 
plough ! The conjunction is tremendous — this aged 
ploughman with bent back, but with alert and eager 
spirit, coming to plough his furrow through the 
amazing antagonisms of Imperial Rome. And he 
ploughed it, and the influence of that upheaval en- 
riches the life of England to-day. 

But we need not go back to apostolic times in 
order to discover heavy fields and fine ploughmen. 
Later times have been glorified by the presentation 
of equally burdensome opportunities, and by the 
possession of equally heroic and determined men. 
I think of Henry Martyn, that brilliant Cambridge 
Wrangler, grasping the coveted honours of his be- 
loved University, and yet strangely hungry in the 
hour of his academic triumph. " I was surprised to 
find that I had grasped a shadow ! " Ah, but it 



196 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURC.I 

was a surprise of grace, a blessed disappointment 
inspired by the Holy Ghost. " The Spirit of the 
Lord bloweth upon it/' and the coveted glory fades 
like the withered grass. It was a gracious disil- 
lusionment, for Henry Martyn's eyes were now lifted 
far above scholastic prizes to the all-satisfying " prize 
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
Having gazed upon the glory of the Lord his eyes 
were washed to discern the vastness of the Lord's 
untilled and fruitless fields, and he turned his con- 
secrated life to India. What a field to plough! 
Read Amy Carmichael's saddening and yet inspiring 
book on " Things as they are in India." Oh, the 
cold, chilling, rainy desolation of it all! Oh, the 
cruelty, the heartbreak, the cryless, soaking sorrow, 
the unconsoled and hopeless pain! Things were no 
better in Henry Martyn's time, and it was to this 
dark, heavy, soddened field that this young Univer- 
sity man turned the point of his share. He put his 
hands to the plough, and with that immortal word 
upon his lips which expressed both vow and prayer, 
^^ Now, let me burn out for God ! " he began his 
lonely work. Henry Martyn is worth thinking about 
if you want a companion in the heroic life. He 
ploughed away at the furrow, ploughed away, and 
even when iUness came, and the sentence of death was 
in him, and his friends beseeched him to come home 
and rest, '' he could not bear the idea of completely 
abandoning the work," to which he had given his 
life, and " so he went to Persia that he might revise 



PLOUGH-WORK 197 

his Persian New Testament among the very people 
for whom it was prepared.'' No " looking back '' 
from the plough ! No relinquishing the handles even 
for a holiday! Ay, and we, too, have got a living 
ploughman whom we cannot entice home for a holi- 
day ! We have cooeyed to him, we have hallooed to 
him, but GriflSth John away in China moves on in 
the furrow ! We would shower our honours on him, 
but he just gratefully smiles in the midst of the 
hopeful field. The Chairmanship of the Congre- 
gational Union was offered to him, and he quietly 
replied, ^' Send me out more ploughmen ! '' These 
are the men who preserve the race from degeneracy 
and putrefaction. They are " the salt of the 
earth.'' 

I think of James Gilmour. I think of the wild, 
far-stretching field to which he addressed his uncom- 
panioned life. Get the size of the field. Mongolia 
stretches from the Sea of Japan on the east to 
Turkestan on the west, a distance of three thousand 
miles, and from the southern boundary of Asiatic 
Russia to the great wall of China, a distance of nine 
hundred miles. Into that mighty field put down a 
single man and let him attempt single-handed the 
heavy work of evangelising it for Christ. Again, 
I say, " What a field ! " and again I say, " What a 
ploughman ! " I greatly like that first entry in his 
diary when he had just got his share in the uncut 
field: '' Astir by daybreak. Made porridge and tea." 
(How like John Tauler, the mystic, in its combina- 



198 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

tion of homely duty and sublime task!) "Made 
porridge and tea. Several huts in sight.'' (Do you 
feel the thrill of that ? These few huts, the fringe of 
the field, the beginnings of the three thousand miles !) 
" Several huts in sight. Oh, let me live for Christ, 
and feel day by day the blessedness of a will given 
up to God." And so he ploughed away, and in 
unthinkable loneliness. " My eyes have filled with 
tears frequently these last few days in spite of 
myself! Oh, the intense loneliness of Christ's life! 
He bore it ! O Jesus, let me follow in Thy steps." 
In after days was there much to cheer him in the 
furrow he had cut ? "In the shape of converts I 
have seen no results. I have not, as far as I am 
aware, seen any one who even wanted to be a Chris- 
tian." He writes again : " Oh, if things would only 
move ! " How then ? Did he turn back ? Oh, no, 
he never looked back! He found his sufficiency in 
his Saviour, and he died in the furrow. In one of 
his last letters to his brother he wrote, " In Jesus is 
all fulness. Supply yourself from Him. Heaven's 
ahead, brother. Hurrah ! " I know of no more 
heartening word in missionary literature than this 
" Hurrah ! " from this much worn ploughman, cut- 
ting his day's furrow in the tremendous field of 
Mongolia. 

Well, we are not out in Mongolia, in India, or 
among the islands of the South Seas : but can we do 
anything to help the man at the plough? Let me 
tell you. There was a man in our own country who 



PLOUGH-WORK 199 

put his hands to a piece of difficult and obnoxious 
work. James Stansfield was a member of the Liberal 
Ministry, and for many years represented my native 
town. He resigned his place in the Cabinet that he 
might take up the honourable but unpopular cause 
of restoring honour to the degraded womanhood of 
our land. It was a tremendous task, exposing him 
to the opprobrium and contumely of his fellows, and 
for many years " he wao despised and rejected of 
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
But my x^urpose just now is to say that when he was 
delivered from Cabinet discipline, and made his first 
appearance, pale and nervous, in the Colston Hall at 
Bristol, he passed a little note along the platform to 
Mrs. Josephine Butler, and on the note were these 
words : " I am so thankful for the women's prayers." 
Was not that strengthening the ploughman ? David 
Hill, the Methodist missionary in China, once wrote 
in his diary, '^ I feel very buoyant this morning " — 
shall we say he was whistling at the plough — " I feel 
very buoyant this morning: somebody must be ar- 
dently praying for me at home ! " Yes, it is true. 
By prayer we can establish the hands of the distant 
ploughman; you and I can know " the fellowship of 
His sufferings," and, in the bonds of Holy Com- 
munion you and I and the far-off ploughman can even 
now meet together at the mercy-seat of God. 

But there is plough-work needed nearer home. 
Here in our own land there is hard and intractable 
ground to be broken up. This hard, unpromising 



200 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

ground is not the peculiar characteristic of any one 
particular class of people. There are the masses of 
the poor, hardened by the winter of their discontent, 
or partially petrified by a still more perilous in- 
difference. Their life is trodden and crushed by 
the iron feet of poverty and by a multitude of petty 
cares. And the work of the Lord's ploughman is 
just this — to turn up the subsoil, to lift the buried 
self into the light, to bring their hidden potencies 
under the marvellous influences of God's redeeming 
grace. Hard work for the ploughman? Ay, heart- 
breaking work! And there are the classes, hardened 
by the bright and lengthy summer of their opulence. 
The ground of their life is baked hard by their con- 
tined noon. The ploughman who understakes this 
work must have a firm hand and a stout heart. A 
book was recently published entitled ^^ Seven Years' 
Hard." It describes the arduous ministry of* a 
worthy ploughman who drove his share for seven 
years through the field of a London slum. I wish 
some one would give us a book on plough-work among 
the suburbs, among the privileged fields of the well- 
to-do. I can imagine that such a story would have 
to be written in blood. But be that as it may, to go 
to rich or poor, be they hardened by luxury or by 
want, and seek to upheave the sub-soil in both — the 
deeper, better, buried self — is the work of the Lord's 
ploughman, and is a most Christly thing. 

" Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, 
Feelings lie buried, which grace can restore." 



PLOUGH-WORK 201 

But away from the individual life of the people, in 
the common and corporate life, there is also plough- 
work to be done. What upheavals are demanded in 
the commonwealth ! And yet it is burdensome and 
exhausting work. Any man who puts his hand to 
the plough in the field of social reform will find that 
he has to encounter a rigid and frigid conservatism. 
I do not use the word with a political significance, 
but to express that multiplicity of iron-bound tradi- 
tions and of vested interests which permeate the soil 
of the common life like wire entanglements, and 
which fetter and embarrass the progress of the re- 
forming plough. 

What, then, shall the ploughman do in his slow, 
disappointing and laborious work? Shall he turn 
back, and leave his idle share to rust? Shall he 
leave the rich and the poor, with their manifold 
indifference, and shall he leave the great broad field 
of possible social redemption; shall he leave his 
Sunday school class, and those two or three feet of 
furrow which he has cut in an obscure place: and 
shall he hie him away home, and shelter himself in 
cushioned ease ? '^ ISTo man, having put his hand 
to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the King- 
dom of God ! '' Ay, that is the peril of the heavenly 
ploughman, the danger of ^^ looking back." Get your 
imagination upon the figure. It is the figure of a 
man who has got his hands upon the plough, but 
who has lost the forward cast from his eyes. He is 
trying to go forward while looking backward. He is 



20a THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

seeking to embody the spirit of progress while he 
hugs the vision of retrospect. He is going one way 
and looking another! Now, that cannot last. The 
Master says such retrospects are disabling. They 
unfit a man for the work of the Kingdom of God. 
And for this reason, that ultimately one's goings are 
determined by one's lookings. In the long run, we 
turn our feet in the direction of our gaze. The 
ploughman, who begins to look backward, first of all 
spoils his work and cuts a crooked furrow, and then 
he turns away from the work he has spoiled. It 
matters not what it is that deflects the vision — 
whether it is that we are dismayed by the difiiculties 
that confront us, and we turn a lingering and covet- 
ous glance to the ease we have left behind : or whether, 
like Demas, we are seduced by the glittering prizes 
of this world, and we lose the fascination of the 
golden crowns of the ripened ears ; or whether we are 
tired of being alone in the furrow, and we seek the 
genial company of the vast and idle crowd. I say it 
matters not what deflects our forward vision, the 
backward look begins the backward turning, and 
hastens our disendowment in the Kingdom of God. 
'^ We are saved by hope " ; yes, and we save by hope, 
we cut our furrow in hope, we work for the harvest 
in hope, in the power of a long and forward-cast 
expectancy, and '' no man, having put his hand to 
the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom 
of God," for the work of the Kingdom he can never 
do. 



PLOUGH-WORK 203 

What, then, is to be the inspiration of the plough- 
man? He must be moved by more than impulse, 
for the freshness and ecstasy may pass, and leave 
him sad and forlorn. His constraint must be more 
than an ideal, for some day the ideal may mock and 
chill him with the impossibility of its own attain- 
ment. 'Noy to a higher inspiration still must the 
ploughman turn, even to the unfailing companionship 
of the ever faithful Lord. There need be no lonely 
furrow. Drive in thy share ; thy Lord is with thee ; 
with thee in the very strength of thine arm, and in 
the very purpose and vision of thine heart. And if 
there is any man or woman, some fellow-labourer of 
the Lord, who is now standing doubting in the fur- 
row, the unfinished furrow, and looking back, let m© 
urge such to set their hands to the work again, and 
fix their heart upon the steadying fellowship of the 
Christ. And when all is over, and '' curfew tolls the 
knell of parting day," and the tired ploughman 
^' homeward plods his weary way," it shall once again 
be told in the fair abode of light how a full day's 
work has led to the grander labours of the eternal 
rest. 



XVIII 
THE ENERGY OF FAITH 

" Verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of 
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain. Remove hence, 
to yonder plain: and it shall remove: and nothing shall be 
impossible unto you." — Matt. xvii. 20. 

And this great and optimistic evangel was spoken, 
not to men who were marching with swinging jubi- 
lant stride in the paths of victory, but to men who 
were temporarily disheartened under the experience 
of defeat. ^' Nothing succeeds like success '' ; it is 
easy to be an optimist, and optimistic counsel is con- 
genial, when one has the '^ open sesame,'' when the 
iron gate swings back at one's approach, and the ob- 
structive mountains sink into a plain. In such con- 
ditions it is easy to engage in the winning shout. 
But is there anything more pathetic and depressing 
than the spectacle of men baffled in a noble enterprise 
and retiring beaten from the field? What can be 
more pathetic than to have watched some chivalrous 
knight, riding forth in the promising dawn, with 
waving plume and glittering lance, returning, in the 
melancholy evening, torn, bespattered, and ashamed, 
leaving the flippant enemy triumphant on the field ? 
And the tragedy of the home-coming is all the deeper 

204 



THE ENERGY OF FAITH 205 

and darker when the way winds through ranks of 
contemptuous crowds, who assail the beaten knight 
with ribaldry and jeers. Such was the pitiable con- 
dition of this little company of the first knights of 
the Lord's Kingdom. They had gone forth with 
flying banners, gazed at by sullen and silent crowds : 
they crept back with drooping banners, to the laugh- 
ing accompaniment of the crowd's contempt. They 
had met the enemy, and they had been overwhelmed 
in the fight. They had gone forth to battle, and they 
had been driven from the field. " I brought him to 
Thy disciples, and they could not cure him ! " Let 
us get the scene into the imagination. Here is a 
man devil-possessed, writhing in the torment of his 
awful bondage. And here are the expulsive knights 
of the Kingdom. And around them is a great crowd, 
the majority of them hostile, many of them cynical, 
and all of them curious, watching this mysterious 
encounter with devouring interest. And the knights 
of the Kingdom get to work. They command, but 
they are not obeyed! One after another tries his 
power, but his power is proved to be weakness. The 
knights become more vehement, their imperative rises 
to a scream, but the devil remains enthroned ! Time 
after time is the attempt repeated amid the mut- 
tered comments of the suspicious crowd, and time 
after time are they repulsed, until at last these 
much-claiming knights have to confess their failure, 
and, to the accompaniment of laughter, they retire 
angrily or silently from the field, leaving the devil in 



20e THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

possession. "I brought him to Thy disciples, and 
they could not cure him." 

The victim was possessed of a devil. I will only 
pause to say I accept the explanation of his bondage. 
Some malign presence was making this man's life 
chaotiCj and was driving him according to its own 
malicious whim. There are phenomena in human 
life which cannot be otherwise explained. I cannot 
explain mysterious emergencies — in my own mind 
and soul — except on the* theory of subtle and active 
presences, who seek by illicit snare and fascination to 
entice me into degrading bondage. The glamour of 
the world does not account for them. The gravita- 
tion of the flesh is an insufficient explanation. They 
are only interpreted in the Scriptural suggestion that 
" our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the 
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual 
hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." But it 
is not necessary for my present purpose to win your 
assent to any particular theory: it is sufficient to 
insist that here was an evil in possession, exercising 
horrible control, paralysing its pitiable victim, and 
the knights of the Lord's Kingdom were incompetent 
to its expulsion. The evil was left on the field! 

Now, our modern experiences very readily lead us 
to place ourselves in the depressed ranks of the 
defeated knights. Who is there who has not set out 
to evict an established evil, and who has not encoun- 
tered bitter and ultimate defeat? It may be that 



THE ENERGY OF FAITH 207 

the evil possession was in your own body, or in your 
mind, or soul, or, maybe, it was housed in the life of 
your child, or in the life of your friend, or perhaps it 
was lodged in the corporate body in the shape of 
some social tyranny, some industrial disease, some 
national vice — whatever it be, and wherever its home, 
you have faced the intruder with the purpose of ex- 
pulsion, and you have signally and utterly failed. 

And now it is high time we hear our Master's 
explanation of the failure. " Then came the dis- 
ciples to Jesus apart, and said. Why could not we 
cast it out ? And He said unto them. Because of 
your unbelief ! '' There is no uncertainty in the 
diagnosis. The cause is not complicated. It is 
single and simple. ^' Unbelief ! " There had been 
a want of confidence. There was doubt at the very 
heart of the disciple's effort. There was a cold fear 
at the very core of his enterprise. He went out with 
a waving banner, but the flag in his heart was droop- 
ing ! '^ Because of your unbelief ! " Our Lord is 
not referring to unbelief in any particular doctrine, 
but rather to the general attitude and outlook of the 
soul. There was no strong, definite confidence in 
the disciple, and such unbelief always ensures paral- 
ysis and defeat. Power belongs to the positive : our 
confidences generate our force. Energy is not born 
of denials, but of affirmations. Denials are only 
empty cartridges, possessed of no explosive strength. 
Negations are not potencies, even though we have 
sufficient to load a ship. WJiat do we believe? 



208 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

What is the range and quality of our confidence? 
What amount of faith is there at the heart of our 
crusade? The answer to these questions will give 
the measure of our strengi;h, and will reveal to us 
our possibilities in the ministry of expulsion. Faith 
is energy! Always and everywhere faith is force. 
Take an advocate at the Bar. His duty to his client 
will endow him with a certain force and persuasive- 
ness of speech, even though he has no confidence in 
the inherent justice of the cause he advocates. But 
let it be further assumed that he believes his own 
brief, that he has a deep, unshaken confidence in the 
rectitude of his cause, that he has entire and absolute 
assurance in his client, and what tremendous heritage 
of power attaches itself to his attack or defence ! It 
is faith that tells. It is not otherwise in the Senate. 
Let a politician support a measure for the removal 
of some injustice, let him do it, not because of his 
conviction in its inherent right, but with his eyes 
fixed upon votes and popular distinction, and his sup- 
port is altogether unimpressive and futile. But let a 
man speak with faith, with a solid core of definite 
confidence burning in his soul, and the glowing en- 
ergy of his soul will get into his words, and his 
ministers will be a fiaming fire. It is faith that 
tells. I need not elaborate the matter. On familiar 
planes the principle is evident. Faith is energy. 
" Lord, what shall we do that we may work the works 
of God ? '' This is the work of God, that ye be- 
lieve ! Energy for all work is there. 



THE ENERGY OF FAITH 209 

But there are different degrees and qualities of 
faith. There is faith in oneself , and such faith is by 
no means unaccompanied with power, l^o one can 
read the life of Xapoleon Bonaparte, from his ob- 
scure early days in Corsica to the brilliant days when 
he strode across Europe like a Colossus, without be- 
ing impressed with the amazing energy which at- 
tached to an audacious self-confidence. He fought 
for no principle, he had no ideals, he was allured 
by no constant and noble ambition. His confidence 
was not in a cause, but in himself, and his confidence 
generated a marvellous strength. But there is a 
faith and confidence higher than this, and endowed 
with a corresponding larger dynamic and resource. 
There is a faith in principles, in causes, in the 
tenacity of truth, in the indestructibility of virtue, 
in the invincibility of the righteous order of the 
world. Such faith is uninfluenced by bribes, undis- 
mayed by majorities, untroubled by threats and 
frowns : it tightly holds to the truth, and confidently 
waits its day. But still higher is the plane to which 
we can rise in the ascending gradient of faith. 
There is a faith in the living God, a faith in His 
love and good will, a confidence in His blessed 
Presence and companionship, an assurance that we 
are one with Him in the sacred inheritance, and that 
in Him we are partakers of all the mighty ministries 
of grace. That is the sublimest of all faiths, and it 
carries with it the most tremendous of all energies, 
for it has behind it the omnipotence of God. 



210 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

'' Faith as a grain/' uprooting a mountain! Such 
is its mighty energy! I do not shrink from the 
startling conjunction. Our scientists are telling us 
that there is energy stored in one grain of radium 
sufficient to raise five hundred tons a mile high. And 
I am not daunted when our Master, speaking of a 
finer power than radium, a subtler energy, a spiritual 
force, tells us of the enormous energy, the miracle- 
working energy that is housed in faith of a supreme 
quality, even though it be only " as a grain of mustard 
seed." '' Te shall say to this mountain, Remove 
hence ! " Is that to be taken literally or figura- 
tively ? Probably figuratively, for the words appear 
to be quoted from a familiar proverb which was used 
to express any vast and difficult achievement. To 
start a gigantic enterprise was spoken of as an at- 
tempt to uproot a mountain. But why did I say, 
" probably figuratively,'' as though there was any 
lingering doubt about the matter? Why not have 
finally disposed of the question by declaring that the 
energy of faith has no dominion outside spirit, and 
that its decrees do not run in the material world? 
Because that is precisely what I cannot say. We 
are dimly gleaming that spiritual energies may have 
more currency than we have ever dreamed. We are 
discovering more and more clearly that spiritual faith 
and temper have much to do with physical health, 
and that our doctors are comparatively impotent 
when the soul has a malady, or when there is present 
^^ a grief that saps the mind." I believe that many 



THE ENERGY OF FAITH 211 

an ailment would vanish if the unbelief went out of 
the soul, and if in its place there came a sweet, 
sound, strong confidence in the Lord. " Ye shall 
say unto this mountain, Remove hence ! . . . and it 
shall remove ! '' And I am equally convinced that 
the exercise of a vigorous faith in God has more 
dominion than we have yet realised in securing the 
entire expulsion of impure bodily habits and lusts. 
Here is a man or woman possessed by the unclean 
devil of drunkenness. How can the devil be ex- 
pelled ? Well, we commonly say that it is a disease, 
and it must be treated as a disease. Yes, but how 
shall we treat it? A physical mountain can only 
be removed by physical means. Are you absolutely 
sure of that ? The doctor shall prescribe medicine. 
Very well. The food shall be prudently selected, 
and all stimulating diet shall be tabooed. Very 
good. His environment shall be changed. Ah, are 
you sure that you are now altogether on the material 
plane ? Are you not coming to another domain ? 
Are you not bringing mystic forces into the ministry ? 
He must have a new hobby! What now is your 
drift ? His society must be refined, and his reading 
must be of a more restful and sedative type. Has 
not the treatment of the physical mountain now left 
the purely physical means? I do not disparage 
these minor ministries, for I regard them all as the 
beneficent gifts of God. But, above and beyond all 
these, sometimes entirely apart and independent of 
them, I would exalt the man^ellous power of the 



212 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

grace of God, acting through the means of alert 
and confident faith. I say that in these regions, 
even the regions of fleshly habit and passion, faith 
has removed mountains. I have known the craving 
for drink annihilated in an hour by the tremendous 
spiritual resources commanded by faith, and even if 
the instance stood alone, which is by no means the 
case, it affords a glimpse of a world of spiritual 
dynamics which we have not yet used or even 
realised. 

And so it is in the entire mountain-range of hu- 
man diflSculty and enterprise. Faith is energy, en- 
ergy by which the mountain is to be removed. En- 
terprises born in doubt are smothered at birth. Can 
we sweeten and purify our streets ? Everything de- 
pends upon our faith. Can we expel the devils of 
drunkenness and lust ? Can we cheer and enlighten 
and redeem the slums ? Can the desert be made '^ to 
rejoice and blossom as the rose '' ? Can we ourselves 
be the ministers of a great salvation ? " According 
to your faith be it unto you." "If ye have faith 
as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this 
mountain, Remove hence to yonder plain: and it 
shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible unto 
you.'' " Every valley shall be exalted, and every 
mountain and hill shall be made low." What, then, 
cannot we do, if we march together, in the power and 
constraint of a confident faith? We can still work 
miracles, in the name of the Lord of Hosts. 



i 



XIX 
THE TESTIMONY OF THE CONSCIENCE 

" For our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, 
that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, 
but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and 
more abundantly to you-ward." — 2 Cob. i. 12. 

That is the reply of an apostle to charges directed 
against the character of his life and ministry. The 
thunder has passed, and this forms the last rumbling 
of a storm of great severity. Alienation had arisen 
between the apostle and the believers at Corinth. 
Lax practices had been tolerated in the Corinthian 
church, and the apostle had denounced them with 
fiery and scathing indignation. And how had they 
answered his indictment? By questioning his 
authority, by throwing suspicion upon his creden- 
tials, by pronouncing him an interloper who did not 
bear the original apostolic seals, and by insinuating 
charges against his moral integrity. It is with this 
last charge that my text is concerned. They said he 
was light in promise and careless in execution. His 
word was not his bond. His path was strewn with 
once fair promises which were now blown about 
like withered leaves. They charged him with " light- 
ness/' with levity, as being a man of ready words 

213 



214* THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

and unready performance. And how does he an- 
swer it ? In the only way in which any man can 
find a satisfactory answer. By appealing to his own 
conscience, and ascertaining if the secret witness 
confirms or destroys the indictment of his foes. And 
that is the only point of interest for to-day. The 
details of the controversy are dead. It would serve 
little purpose to attempt to revive them. But it is 
of perennial interest, and of vital importance to 
know how a great apostle surveyed his own be- 
haviour, by what standards he judged it, and in what 
conclusions he found his moral satisfaction and 
peace. How did Paul examine his life? What 
was the nature of the tribunal? In what did he 
find his peace? His court of judgment was the 
conscience. The case to be submitted was his public 
and private behaviour. The verdict was one of 
moral approbation. The issue was an enhanced and 
glorified rejoicing. " For our glorying is this, the 
testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and 
sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the 
grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and 
more especially to you-wards." 

What was the court of judgment ? " Our con- 
science." That is the supreme court to which every 
man must make final appeal. But how is the court 
constituted? What is the conscience? Many sym- 
bols have been used in attempted definition. It has 
been described as a moral sense, and every physical 
sense has been enlisted in the work of interpretation. 



TESTIMONY OF THE CONSCIENCE 215 

Conscience has been said to be a sense of sight for 
discerning and discriminating moral colours — the 
virgin white of rectitude, the deadly black of ini- 
quity, and the dubious greys of ambiguity and com- 
promise. And conscience has been said to be a sense 
of hearing, for the detection of moral tones, moral 
harmonies and discords, and for distinguishing '' the 
voice of the great Eternal '' from the shrill loudness 
of the fleeting day. And conscience has been said 
to be a sense of taste, a palate for the appreciation 
of moral flavours, by means of which we may be 
able to apprehend the difference between the morally 
bitter and offensive, and the morally nutritious and 
sweet. Conscience has also been compared to the 
aesthetic sense. The aesthetic sense is an inherent 
capacity for detecting the ugly and the beautiful, 
making appreciative response to the graceful curve, 
and recoiling from makeshift and confusion. And 
the conscience is said to be an aesthetic sense on the 
moral plane, by which we feel the grace and fascina- 
tion of moral loveliness, and the repulsion of moral 
chaos and perversity. 

Well, all these analogies are significant, and they 
help us to give expression to the nature and ministry 
of the conscience. But I think we must track the 
matter into yet deeper places, even though we may 
feel the dark and awful silences of " unfathomable 
mines." If conscience be only a sense, we can con- 
ceive it without awe. If conscience be only a su- 
perior sense it is void of the awful authority of the 



216 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

judgment bench. If conscience be only an aesthetic 
perception it is shorn of the thunders and lightnings 
of the throne. 'No man reasons rightly about con- 
science who makes it to be pale moonlight, devoid 
of scorching beam. No conception is adequate which 
makes conscience a harmless sheet4ightning playing 
picturesquely about the ripening corn. Everybody 
knows that conscience is not only luminous but con- 
victing, it not only lights but it strikes, its burning 
arrows are fraught with peril and death. We have 
got to trace that forked flame and therefore we must 
go deeper still. 

Let me give John Wesley's definition or descrip- 
tion of the conscience. John Wesley says that the 
conscience is '^ a faculty or power implanted by 
God " in the soul by which every man perceives 
^' what is right or wrong in his own heart or life, 
in his tempers, thoughts, words or actions." Does 
that take me any deeper? Apparently not, but in 
reality it leads me into the infinite. It names God 
in association with conscience, and in that conjunc- 
tion I get the requisite awe of its judgment, and I 
begin to feel the mysterious origin of the lightning 
flash and flame. But may our analysis be even 
more precise than John Wesley's? Let us examine 
the word itself. Our English word '^ conscience " is 
a very accurate transcript of the original word used 
by the apostle Paul. If we examine the one we shall 
be exploring the other. Take then the word '^ con- 
science." Break it in two. Put aside the prelim- 



TESTIMONY OF THE CONSCIENCE 217 

inary syllable. What have you left ? " Science/' 
And what is '^ science " ? Knowledge. Attach your 
preliminary syllable, ^^ con." What have you now? 
*^ Con '' is significant of association, fellowship, in- 
tercourse. " Con " marks the confluence of many 
or the meeting of two. Where " con " is, there is 
isolation. " Con-science " ; '' knowledge with " : 
here are two engaged ! It is the fellowship of in- 
telligences, it is the communion of man and God. It 
is the relation of pupil and teacher, of receiver and 
giver, of echo and voice. The preliminary syllable 
in '' conscience " is significant of a mysterious sec- 
ond Presence whom we name God. 

And now I am prepared to venture upon a sen- 
tence which I offer not as an exact definition but as 
a practical description of the conscience. Conscience 
is a medium in personality through which is trans- 
mitted to the soul the moral judgment and impera- 
tives of God. In the word '' conscience " the value 
of the last syllable is conditioned by the value of the 
first. The ^^ science " will be dim, dull, unreliable if 
the ^' con," the association, be frail or broken. In 
every healthy conscience there is correspondence be- 
tween the human and the divine, and the quality 
of the correspondence is determined by the medium 
through which it is made. 

The medium can be impaired. We can interfere 
with the '' con," and the '' science " will be perverted. 
John Bunyan, that marvellous expert in the heart of 
man, declares that the conscience can become " stony, 



218 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

benumbed/' it can be " bribed, deluded, muzzled/' 
If all that can happen to the former part of the 
word, it is not difficult to imagine what will happen 
to the latter part. The apostle says that the medium 
can be '' seared as with a hot iron," its perceptive 
surface can be destrojed as we might destroy the 
prepared surface of a photographer's plate. He de- 
clares that the conscience can abound in what he 
calls ^^ offence/' like the flaws in a mirror which 
render its transmission untrue. And above all this, 
our Master Himself declares that the medium can 
be so distorted that the supposed knowledge is no 
knowledge at all. '' If thine eye be evil," if the 
'' con " be ravaged, ^^ thy whole body shall be full 
of darkness." " And if the light that is in thee 
be darkness," if thou art mistaking a miasmic will- 
o'-the-wisp for a heavenly star, " how great is the 
darkness ! " 

Common experience gives confirmation to this 
teaching. There are consciences which are lacking 
in accuracy, and there are consciences which are lack- 
ing in range. There are consciences which are ir- 
regular anywhere, and there are others which are 
only accurate in limited spheres. There are con- 
sciences which are domestically vigilant but politi- 
cally dormant. Some consciences are responsive to 
private debt, but dumb and numb to public obliga- 
tion. There is a sense of right which reigns in the 
inch but not in the mile. Its decree governs the 
home, but it does not engirdle the world. Its do- 



TESTIMONY OF THE CONSCIENCE 219 

minion does not include the Congo and America, and 
it registers no imperatives concerning lands afar. 

And so, if we are going to submit a matter to the 
conscience it is of the utmost necessity that we first 
of all examine the tribunal itself. Is the court 
capable, unbribable, pure and true ? If we are going 
to consult the '' science '^ we must rigorously scruti- 
nise the " con." When we go into conscience it 
must be into the most holy place, with only the 
thinnest veil between ourselves and God. When we 
hear the voice of conscience we ought to be able to 
say, with apostle and prophet, " The Lord said unto 
me,'' and our light must be a beam from the great 
white throne. 

It was before such an august tribunal that the 
apostle submitted his public and private life. '' Our 
behaviour in the world, and more abundantly to yovr 
ward/' Let us note the breadth of the case sub- 
mitted to the court. He appeared before the solemn 
sanctities of his conscience, and he submitted his 
behaviour as a Christian " in the world.'' Think of 
it. The world is the realm of studied ambiguity 
and compromise. The speech of the world is the 
language of equivocation. Worldliness is human 
activity with God left out. And for a Christian to 
be " in the world " is to be always exposed to the 
snare of dissembling, to the temptation of borrowing 
an accent or a dialect, and of practising 'the doleful 
arts of the trimmer. The Christian must have con- 
nection with the world, but no communion. He must 



220 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

be " in '^ it but not '^ of '' it. He must move among 
its ambitions and not lose his aspirations. He must 
confront its experiences and not lose his principles. 
He must encounter its cleverness and not lose his 
wisdom. He must be able to look upon its coveted 
garlands and not throw away his crown. Can it 
be done? The apostle Paul, at any rate^ took his 
behaviour in the worlds and quietly and confidently 
submitted it to the searching judgment of a con- 
science which registered the holy mind of God. 

But there is another part of the case. '' My 'be- 
haviour more abundantly to you-ward," He sub- 
mits this to the tribunal, and I really think that this 
is even more daring than the other. He submitted 
his life in the church as well as his behaviour in the 
world. And that includes a very bold and inclusive 
scrutiny. For let me mention a very extraordinary 
thing which sometimes characterises the Christian 
life. There are Christian men whose consciences are 
more active in the world than they are in the Church. 
They pay more respect to the obligations of their 
membership in the club than to the obligations of 
their membership in the Church. They regard the 
one with scrupulous exactitude, they regard the other 
with comparative lightness and laxity. If thought 
and sympathy and prayer are the appointed contri- 
butions to Christian fellowship, then they pay or 
they don^t pay, just as they please. They never 
infringe a rule of the club; they ignore the rules of 
the Church without compunction. A masonic pledge 



TESTIMONY OF THE CONSCIENCE 221 

has more sanctity than their covenant with the 
Church of Christ. Their communion with a minor 
society is a reality, their communion with Christian 
believers is only a name. Xow that is a very extraor- 
dinary thing, and I think that in some degree it is 
a common experience. If our Church relationships 
and obligations were to be brought before the search- 
ing glance of some supreme tribunal I think the 
majority of us would shrink into a dwarfed and 
pathetic insignificance. But it is just here that the 
apostle places his most exultant emphasis. " Our 
behaviour " more especially " to you-ward." He 
takes his life of fellowship in the Church, and he 
spreads it out before the tribunal of a conscience that 
is illumined with the glorious presence of God. 

And what is the verdict of the court? The ver- 
dict is in two parts, negative and positive. And the 
negative verdict is this : '' Not in fleshly wisdom/' 
Such was the negative testimony of conscience con- 
cerning the life submitted to its judgment. " N'ot in 
fleshly wisdom ! '^ said the court. This is not a life 
of " show/' of glittering cleverness and superficial 
sharpness. Whatever else it is, Paul's " behaviour " 
is not a fine polish upon a vicious grain. It is not 
the courtesy of fine breeding detached from noble 
morals. It is not the shimmer on noisome waters: 
its wisdom is not a ghostly light playing about a 
grave. So said conscience, and therefore, said Paul, 
'^ Our glorying is this, the testimony of our con- 
science . . . not in fleshly wisdom." 



222 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

And what was the positive verdict? ''In holi- 
ness/' That was the first positive item in the ver- 
dict. '' In holiness ! " And what is that ? Well, 
in the first place, holiness is something in the grain, 
it is in the stuff, in the fibre, in every thread and 
every fibre of the soul. It is all in the piece, and all 
of a piece. It is " wholeness. '^ And then, in the 
second place, holiness means the divine in the grain, 
the divine in the nature, in the life-stuff, God in the 
entire piece. Think of that, and prayerfully won- 
der! Here is a man, of such glorious consecration, 
that when he takes the fabric of his behaviour and 
spreads it before his conscience, and conscience has 
examined it in warp and woof, this is the verdict 
given — God in every thread, wrought " in holiness,'^ 
royal through and through! 

And take the remaining clause in the verdict of 
the court — '' in sincerity of God/' That was its 
second positive characteristic. And what is this word 
" sincerity '' ? Its literal significance is '^ sun- 
judged." The character of the apostle was not 
dulled in the radiant beam. Its brightness matches 
the light of God. And therefore there is nothing 
shady about it, and nothing underhand, nothing 
sneaking about in the shadows. There is no subtle 
manoeuvring, no Jesuitry, no duplicity. Everything 
is as frank as the day, and as candid as the noon. 
" In sincerity of God ! '' 

Such was the judgment of this august tribunal on 
this man's behaviour in the world and in the Church. 



TESTIMONY OF THE CONSCIENCE 223 

" Our glorying is this^ the testimony of our con- 
science, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in 
fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved 
ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you- 
ward." Do you wonder at the sober glory, do you 
wonder at the sacred joy? When a vigilant con- 
science speaks in this wise, the awful tribunal is 
transformed into our Father's house, and there is 
music and dancing. Any other kind of joy is vain 
and fleeting. Joy that is not born near conscience 
is only the flare of a street-lamp, subject to accident, 
and liable to be blown out on the first tempestuous 
day. Joy that is born near conscience shares the 
flame of the seraphim who burn and shine with the 
eternal life of Q^d. 



XX 
THE ART OF GIVING 

"Let each man do according as he hath purposed in his 
heart, not grudgingly, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheer- 
ful giver." — 2 CoE. ix. 7. 

That is a deseription of Christian beneficence of 
fine and superlative order. And yet the statement 
is all maimed and bleeding; it is torn away from 
so many vital kinships, in which its life consists. 
That is the ever-besetting peril of textual exposition, 
the peril of regarding an amputated limb as the 
entire body. And this is particularly true of all 
moral counsels, of all those ethical injunctions which 
seem to be detached from spiritual sanctions: we 
handle them in their apparent separateness, and we 
do not see that they are damaged and bleeding mem- 
bers. It is the simple truth to say that in the word 
of God you cannot remove anything without hurting 
it; anything and everything can only be safely re- 
garded when seen in its profound and manifold nerve- 
kinships with the central life of the entire book. 

Let me change my figure. Here is this fair grace 
of Christian beneficence growing before us in this 
verse. You cannot lift it out of its setting and hope- 
fully plant it elsewhere. It would not be the same 
if you cut it out and inserted it in the columns of 

224 



THE ART OF GIVING 225 

our daily press. There are some plants of which 
you can safely say, " You can grow them anywhere ! " 
There are others which require a peculiar and spe- 
cially compounded soil, and only in this combina- 
tion can they thrive. And this wild flower of the 
kingdom at which I am asking you to gaze is par- 
ticularly one of the kind which demand a rich and 
special soil, and it has got such a soil in the ground- 
bed of this great epistle. It is not a bit of good 
merely admiring the size and shape and colour of 
this exquisite plant, and utterly ignoring the wealthy 
setting in which it finds its nutriment. You might 
as well dig up some flower of the woods, growing 
there in a bed as rich as a bride's cake, and plant it 
in the dry innutritions gravel of a backyard, and 
expect a continuance of the woodland glory, as take 
graces like these from their beds of fat sustenance 
and expect them to flourish in chance and impover- 
ished surroundings. K^o, we cannot grow fine graces 
in lean soils. There is only one thing more depress- 
ing than to see an ill-fed plant lifting its sickly 
head out of a pauperised soil, and that is the spec- 
tacle of a pinched and anaemic virtue raising its 
slender and uncertain life out of poverty-stricken 
resource. The roots of all these apostolic graces run 
right throughout the epistles, and every moral maxim 
is imbedded in profound devotion. It is not my 
present purpose to analyse the soil of this particular 
epistle; it is sufficient to emphasise the richness of 
its quality. Investigate for yourselves the rich sec- 



226 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

tion exposed in the fifth chapter, or that splendid 
layer at the end of the sixth chapter ; or give patient 
examination to this rare representative portion of 
the eighth chapter, ^' Ye know the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your 
sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty 
might become rich " : or take the wealthy culmina- 
tion of this very chapter, '' Thanks be to God for 
His unspeakable gift '" : and I think you will feel 
that these practical precepts emerge out of the In- 
finite, and suck their nutriment from the very heart 
of God. 

The fact of the matter is, the liberality of the 
apostle Paul is always a fruit, and never a work, 
and it is the product of his communion with the 
Eternal. First of all, he had passed through a 
mighty spiritual experience which he can only de- 
scribe as a transition from darkness to light, from 
slavery to freedom, from utter poverty to ^' unsearch- 
able riches in Christ.'' That glorious emancipation 
had made him the love-slave of His Deliverer, and he 
watched with vigilant love-eyes for the faintest in- 
dication of his Master's will. '' The love of Christ 
constraineth me ! " And out of this liberty of the 
love-slave there emerges a spontaneous and fervent 
gratitude which expresses itself in every form of 
liberal and bountiful service. Paul was a great 
giver because he had so greatly received. He gave 
thanks " without ceasing," and his substance fol- 
lowed hard in the track of his praise. Paul's liber- 



THE ART OF GIVING 22T 

ality can be traced to Calvary; all his giving had 
its roots at the Cross. 

Having spent so much time in emphasising the 
far-stretching relationship of this great virtue, I 
am now ready to consider its prominent character- 
istics. What is the nature of a fine beneficence ? 
The apostle begins his description by proclaiming 
the negative aspects of the grace. First of all, there 
is an absence of '' grudging/' That is a very ex- 
pressive word, and its real content is given in the 
margin, where we find the alternative phrase " of 
sorrow.'' That is to say, there are some people whose 
giving is ^' of sorrow," as though they were in pain, 
and the transaction is done to the accompaniment of 
sighs and groans. Who does not know that profound 
sigh which encounters the appeal, as if the very 
pillars of the soul were yielding ? There is no wed- 
ding air about the ministry: it is possessed by the 
tearful sombreness of the grave ! It is not that the 
gift is withheld: it is that it comes so reluctantly, 
as though some heart-strings were snapping in the 
passage. The thing is done, but it is more than half- 
spoilt in the doing! And what is the explanation 
of this pain of apparent martyrdom ? Just this : the 
soul is wedded to a thing instead of to an ideal, 
and the extraction of the thing is an agonising 
divorce. Xow the apostle declares that Christian 
beneficence has this plain characteristic, it is not 
grudging, it is not '' of sorrow." There is no sigh 
of collapse, there is no frictional sound in the trans- 



228 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

ference, there is no sulky warder at the gate who 
opens the treasure house with grim reluctance. The 
door is open, there is sunshine on the step, and there 
is a sound of welcome within. " Not grudgingly ! " 
And then he mentions a second negative character- 
istic ; true liberality is not " of necessity/' By 
which phrase the apostle most clearly implies that 
there are people who give just because they are com- 
pelled to give. They give because they must, and 
not because they desire. They would not give if they 
could find a way out of it. Their liberality is a 
'^ forced '' product, and, like all forced things, lack- 
ing nature's matured sweetness and charm. They 
give to the poor through the poor rate, but most 
certainly they would not if they could help it! If 
the poor-rate collector had no more compulsory force 
behind him than a tract distributor, the springs of 
their liberality would dry up in a day! They give 
'' of necessity." But there are other necessitating 
ministries besides the police. Social conventions can 
exercise a compulsion which elicits apparent liber- 
ality. Some people give because others are giving, 
and it will not pay to be out ! This is not a liberal- 
ity that pioneers and makes discoveries for itself: 
it is always found in the tracks which others have 
made. It is never in the van: it is always in the 
rear. It never initiates, it only follows. It is like 
the slip of paper lying in the railway track, snatched 
up in the suction of a passing train and whirled along 
in the path of common destiny. This liberality is 



THE ART OF GIVING 229 

caught in fashionable currents, and transiently moves 
of " necessity." Now the apostle teaches that no 
such small '' necessity '^ characterises the Christian 
grace. It does not give because it must, it gives be- 
cause it wants. There is no outer compulsion upon 
it, tyrannically ruling its reluctant heart. Its con- 
straint is quite otherwise, the gentle constraint of 
devotional love. '' Not of necessity ! " 

But the apostle leaves these merely negative and 
somewhat colourless attributes and proceeds to more 
positive characteristics. True liberality is simple, 
having been born in the " heart." It is not engen- 
dered in the regions of calculation and expediency, 
but in that deep, elementary, vibratory region, the 
abode of the sympathetic chords of the life. There 
can be no fine liberality if these are untouched and 
unstirred. All men are equipped with the funda- 
mental, resonant chords of humanity, and it is only 
when these are struck and give out a vibratory re- 
sponse that we obtain the conditions of Christian 
beneficence. But let no one imagine that the apostle 
is proclaiming the intended domination of blind emo- 
tions. This basal sympathy is to express itself in 
intelligent purpose. '' Accordirig as he hath pur- 
posed in his heart/' True liberality is inclusive of 
both; heart and purpose; emotion and understand- 
ing; it is not symbolised in the dark, moving waters 
of a restless sea, but in these same disturbed waters 
in the light of the full moon. Christian graces are 
not blind dispositions; they are lit up by the ministry 



230 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

of a vigilant understanding. And further, this vir- 
tue of liberality is not only simple, and intelligent, 
it is warmed through and through with a most genial 
heat — " God loveth a cheerful giver ! '' I do not 
think the phrase needs any elaboration, certainly not 
for clearness, and possibly only for emphasis. But 
can there be any more gracious and welcome ex- 
perience than this one of having to do the King's 
business with a man whose heart is stirred, and 
whose purpose is clear, and who just baptises you 
with sunshine that he has caught from the counte- 
nance of his Lord ? If you have discovered a more 
delightful experience than that, I should like to know 
in what fields you have been pasturing! And yet, 
after all, there is a more delightful experience than 
so gracious a meeting with this so gracious a man, 
and that is, to be the man yourself, with your own 
heart stirred like harp chords, and your own purpose 
clear with the counsels of the Almighty, and your 
own sunlit face throwing reflected beams of cheery 
good will upon every form of noble enterprise. Surely 
that is better and more delightful still ; and away in 
the heights of these superlative compassions, '' be 
mine this better part ! '' '' Let each man do accord- 
ing as he hath purposed in his heart : not grudgingly,- 
or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." 

Now, if this high quality of liberality is to be 
manifested in our life, there are one or two matters 
to which we must give attention, altogether apart 
from those primary and radical conditions to which 



THE ART OF GIVING 231 

I referred at the outset. The spirit of liberality 
requires to be kept informed. To deny the informa- 
tion is to refuse the requisite incitement. Liberality 
cannot work in a vacuum any more than sound can 
travel in a vacuum. Liberality works through certain 
prepared conditions, and one of the requisite condi- 
tions is that we should provide it with news. That 
is true in reference to all manner of noble enterprise, 
both at home and abroad. There will be no liber- 
ality where nothing is known: and therefore next to 
our knowledge of God we require the facts of himaan 
life. Liberality and ignorance will never consort 
together. But even facts themselves may lie in the 
mind as infertile as marbles in a boy's pocket. If 
facts are to become operative and incentive, our 
imaginations must be brought to play upon them. 
The majority of us only see facts superficially, we 
do not see them cubicallv: we see the surface, we do 
not see the depth. Xow the imagination is the God- 
given implement for discovering the cubical con- 
tents of a fact, and it is onlv when we sit down and 
patiently use that implement that this hidden sig- 
nificance is disclosed. It is a profoimd conviction 
of my life that the majority of people do not use 
their imaginations ; they use what they call their 
imaginations, but in reality they are only employing 
a certain power of fancy which lightly pictures things 
that are not, and not this tremendous instnmient 
for seeing things as they are. I declare that if we 
could see things as they are in the more desolate 



233 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

portion of such a city as Birmingham — I do not 
mean merely to go and see a grey and dingy court, 
or even to enter into a house which abides in con- 
stant twilight, for even things seen may be facts un- 
known, we may see and not perceive — but if we could 
imaginatively enter into its inner significances, sig- 
nificances that cannot be told in speech, and if we 
could track some of its far-reaching relationships, 
and open out these stubborn facts like the opening 
of a chestnut burr, everybody's liberality would leap 
to the enterprise of institutional work. And what 
applies to this applies to the entire field of Christian 
service. We must get to know the insides of our 
facts, and we must use every available means to 
obtain the knowledge. One fact, imaginatively real- 
ised, is worth a ton of insignificant facts, tumbled 
upon the floor of the most retentive memory. There 
would be no grudging, and no giving '' of necessity,'' 
but an abundance of cheerful giving, if those who 
are ^^ in Christ " would endeavour to realise the 
cubical content of our common life. 

But, after all that I have said, I do not think I 
have completed the enumeration of the conditions 
that are requisite for a free and cheery spirit of 
liberality. Even with all this, the heart would still 
be exposed to the most insidious snares. There are 
people who are most unquestionably in Christ, and 
who even exercise such imagination as I have tried 
to describe, and yet, through lack of ordinary busi- 
ness arrangement, their giving is marked by niggard- 



THE ART OF GIVING 233 

Uness and stint. I am the keeper of no man's con- 
science, and it is not mine to dictate to any man's 
conscience, but I am dealing with a most clamant 
defect in modern Christian life in this very want 
of reasonable system in our beneficence. I am per- 
fectly sure that no liberality will continue generous 
and ready and cheery imless there is some basal and 
systematic arrangement. In the old Jewish dis- 
pensation the brotherhood of God's people were com- 
manded to set aside one-tenth of their income for 
unselfish service. I am persuaded that in the case 
of men of affluence, and even of moderately wealthy 
incomes, this is by no means an adequate proportion. 
I do not think a man with a thousand a year ought 
to be contented with the consecration of a tenth. 
Recently I heard very directly of one conspicuously 
wealthy man in our country, who began in very 
humble circumstances, and who in his comparative 
poverty systematically assigned a tenth for service, 
but he increased the proportion with the increase of 
his wealth, and he now assigns one-third to the 
service of his fellows and his Lord. But my pur-\ 
pose just now is to urge the necessity and the delight 
of some reasonable svstem in our beneficence. Set 
aside a certain proportion: determine that propor- 
tion in the very presence of your Lord. And what 
will be the effect? In the first place, it will save 
you from the peril of assmning you have given more, 
money than you really have. There are some people ^ 
who unfortunately estimate their liberality by the 



234 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

number of appeals that are made to them, and not 
by their responses. ^^ Another appeal!'^ they say! 
" And yet another ! " " Another still ! '' And they 
forget that this was their only response, and they 
have come to count the very appeal as righteousness ! 
Now, systematic giving will save us from that. 
And it will save us further from countless worries 
and petty casuistries. We shall not have to be con- 
tinually arguing with ourselves, and pleading with 
ourselves, and excusing ourselves. ISTo, there will be 
the simple enquiry: There are our resources, and 
here is the appeal : can it be met ? And last of all, 
systematic giving makes liberality a delight. To 
go to your consecrated money, to your dedicated tenth, 
or whatever the proportion may be, is like having 
a private bank in which you can draw for the work 
of the Lord. Try it, and you will add your seal 
to the witness that this is true! 

'' Ood loveth " such a giver ! What an inherit- 
ance! What a baptism! Such a man lives in the 
love of the Almighty. It is enough. In this divine 
good life will reach its consummation and its crown. 
The man is even now '^ for ever with the Lord.'' 



XXI 
WANTED, A VERDICT I 

**And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choos&^you 
this day whom ye will serve: whether the gods which your 
fathers served that were on this side of the flood or the gods 
of the Ammonites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and 
my house, we will serve the Lord." — Jos. xxiv. 15. 

I am not just now concerned with the details of 
the particular incidents in which this challenge was 
born. The words are independent of local environ- 
ment ; they have a permanent value. In this respect 
they are like many of the Psalms ; they belong to no 
clime or time, and they exercise an unchanging min- 
istry through all the changing years. But the his- 
torical setting is briefly this: An old crusader has 
come to the end of his days, and in the assembly of 
his people he gives them his last counsel, the matured 
warning and experience of his years. He reviews 
their wonderful history, the long succession of provi- 
dential mercies, shining like an unbroken line of 
light far back to the days of their Egyptian bondage. 
He rehearses the Lord's dealings with His people, 
and he also rehearses the people's dealings with the 
Lord. He recalls their murmurings, their reluctant 
service, their dubious homage, their uncertain attach- 
ment, their frequent revolts. He declares that they 

235 



2S6 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

have spent their days in light and flippant flirtations, 
and that they have never settled down into steady 
affection, and into serious wedlock with the Lord. 
And so this is the urgent counsel of the dying war- 
rior to his people: '^ Let these flirtations be ended! 
In one way or another make up your minds ! Don't 
go any further with this dubious limping gait ! Set- 
tle down to something positive and decisive ! Choose 
you this day whom ye will serve." It is the critical 
position to which the prophet Elijah also brought 
the people. " How long halt ye between two opin- 
ions ? '' How long will ye spend your life in in- 
conclusive flirtations ? Settle the matter. Make up 
your minds. " If the Lord be God, follow him ; but 
if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered 
him not a word," and the timid flirtations went on. 
And so it is to-day. In spiritual relationships men 
flirt, but they do not wed ; they pay courteous atten- 
tion, but they do not choose. They give a respectful 
hearing, but they do not risk an issue. Everything is 
open, nothing concludes. And so I am bringing 
this old-world counsel into our modern conditions, as 
counsel which I think is pertinent to much of our 
inconsequent and inconclusive life. Put an end to 
mental hesitancy and moral timidity ! Stop the flir- 
tations and wed ! " Choose you this day whom ye 
will serve." 

Now let us look a little more in detail at the 
counsel, and see what it implies. First of all, it 
surely means that our thinking should lead to moral 



WANTED, A VERDICT! 237 

conclusions. There is such a lot of thinking on 
moral and spiritual themes which is never tied to- 
gether in a final knot. It is loose, unfinished, and 
ineffective. There are so many of our mental webs 
which never become garments. The looms of the 
brain are in almost perpetual motion; we spin, and 
spin, and spin, but nothing comes of it. And there- 
fore it is that John Euskin has said that '' one of 
the worst diseases to which the human mind is liable 
is its disease of thinking." ^ow it is quite un- 
necessary to say that Euskin is no advocate of mental 
passivity or mental indolence. He spent his days in 
the endeavour to awake our people to mental vigi- 
lance, and to quicken their perceptions in body, mind, 
and soul. It is not, therefore, a remonstrance against 
mental activity, but against a mental activity which 
makes no practical advance. It is a remonstrance 
against the motion of the hobby-horse, motion with- 
out progress, and not against the motion of a mental 
gteed whose movements are directed bv bit and bridal 
to definite and serviceable ends. Diseased thinking 
is goal-less thinking, thinking which never arrives, 
thinking which never concludes; and, according to 
Euskin, it is one of '^ the worst diseases " which affect 
the human mind. 

Xow, all thinking about these high, imperial mat- 
ters should culminate in moral crises, and toward 
those crises they should inevitably tend. At certain 
intervals in our life our minds should be constituted 
a court of law, as in the closing hours of some mo- 



238 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

mentous and entrancing case. The witnesses have 
been heard. The evidence is finished. Counsel has 
spoken. The judge has sifted the entanglements, 
and presented the issue in a clear and continuous 
story. And now for the verdict, and for the judg- 
ment, and for execution, and the case is ended. And 
that, I say, is what we want in the realm of the mind. 
Now and again the bustling quests of the mind must 
be hushed and concentrated on a solemn court of 
judgment. The evidence must be regarded as closed. 
Mental exploration must change to moral verdict, and 
the judgment must be executed. Yes, that is what 
we want, and that is what we lack in much of our 
mental movements — we lack moral verdicts. Our 
thinking trails on, and on, and on, for the mere 
delight of the intellectual process, and the verdict 
is indefinitely delayed. And so life is spent in a 
sort of royal commission which never reports, and 
in the flippant delay the moral slumber of the soul 
is deepened and intensified. 

Now there are some matters on which we are no 
longer entitled to keep an open mind. We ought to 
wipe out the note of interrogation and insert a period. 
The verdict ought to be given, and the case closed. 
The beauty of holiness, the obligation of truthfulness, 
the duty of charity, the dignity of chivalry, the 
mighty ministry of sacrifice — these are typical of 
matters which ought no longer to lie upon the table 
as open questions, but upon which we ought to issue 
final judgment, and close the doors of our minds. 



WANTED, A VERDICT! 239 

But above and beyond all these questions of virtue 
there is the supreme issue of the moral and spiritual 
supremacy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
We may keep an open mind on the nature of the 
miracles, on the true interpretation of the atonement, 
on the function and limitations of the ministry of 
prayer, and on a thousand and one theological ques- 
tions which for centuries have provided diversions 
for the schools; but on the question of the moral 
sovereignty and spiritual pre-eminence of the Christ ; 
on the question as to who has the right to the homage 
and service of our wills, the case ought to be closed, 
and our minds ought to register a definite and final 
decision. 

I venture to say there is not a man or woman who 
reads these words who requires further evidence 
about the rightful leadership of Jesus Christ; and 
yet the case drifts on and on, and no weighty and 
revolutionising verdict is pronounced. And we can- 
not afford to surrender our lives to purposes of mere 
enquiry. We are in this world, not merely as en- 
quirers, but as crusaders ; not only to think, but to do. 
Take my own life. At the most, there is probably 
only a stretch of thirty years awaiting me. What 
shall I do with the years? Shall I go on and on, 
making timid and doubtful enquiries? Shall I go 
on, lightly toying with evidence that I have been 
touching for years; or shall I pull myself together, 
and risk a strong conclusion? In my life, at any 
rate, it were high time the court were constituted for 



240 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

judgment, high time that I pronounce verdict upon 
the Lord, solemnly, definitely, and decisively; and 
on this most supreme of all supremacies finally close 
the case. 

But would not that be narrowness of mind ? But 
why should it be regarded as narrowness of mind 
to have a closed mind about settled issues? There 
is a mental disposition rampant to-day which de- 
scribes itself as " breadth of mind,'' and which is 
a very spurious thing. We seem to be approaching 
a time when the only people who will be entitled to 
be called broad will be people who have settled con- 
victions about nothing! The only people who will 
be regarded as mentally free will be mental vagrants, 
who have no fixed and settled abodes! I say the 
breadth is spurious, and the freedom is counterfeit. 
Believe me, there is a very real and profound dis- 
tinction between mental licentiousness and mental 
liberty. Mental licentiousness is laxative; mental 
liberty is tonic. All true liberty has a certain fixity, 
and from that fixity it draws its sap and virtue. 
Men who have no mental holdfasts may boast about 
their freedom, but their freedom is unreal and is 
neither fruitful nor efiicient. It is the truth which 
makes us free. It is the man with a settled home 
who can walk abroad with serene and receptive 
freedom. And therefore I come back to the old 
counsel. Think up to an issue. Think up to a con- 
clusion. Think up to moral settledness and fixity. 
" What think ye of Christ ? " Register a verdict, 



WANTED, A VERDICT! Ul 

choose your leader, '^ Choose you this day whom ye 
will serve. '^ 

Let me take you a step further. We are coun- 
selled not only to think to an issue, but to register 
our mental verdicts in definite moral and spiritual 
decisions. If in your mind the Lord Jesus Christ is 
judged to be the supreme Leader and Saviour of 
men, then pronounce the judgment from the throne 
of your life, and solemnly resolve to give the Christ 
the practical homage and fealty of your will. For it 
is not only '' thinking '' that is prone to meander in 
tedious and wasteful futility, but " willing '^ also is 
apt to loiter in wasteful indecision. A man may 
determine upon a verdict, and may solemnly pro- 
nounce the verdict, and yet he may postpone the 
execution of it. A man may honestly say " Lord ! 
Lord! '' and do not the thing which the Lord says. 
And that is why the Bible calls upon men to put 
their solemn verdicts into immediate execution. 
'' Choose you this day whom ye will serve.'' " To- 
day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your 
hearts I " '' Behold, now is the accepted time, now 
is the day of salvation ! " And yet we postpone, we 
dilly-dally, we devise excuses, and, as in the pro- 
crastination of Hamlet, '' the native hue of resolution 
is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." The 
court has given judgment, but execution is stayed. 
That is surely the condition of multitudes in this 
land. They have closed the case. They have given 
their verdict. And yet their life is still frittered 



242 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

away in puerilities, or in uncertain or undignified 
enterprise. And all for want of deliberate choice, 
and swift and summary action ! They let ^^ I dare 
not " wait upon '^ I would/' and life speeds on to the 
night ! The more I live, the more I study life, the 
more I see its aimless, goal-less driftings, the more I 
counsel a definite deliberateness in the determination 
of a Christian life. Yes, I would even go so far as 
to say that I would have men break up their inde- 
cision by a deliberate action which is striking and 
dramatic. I do not mean a stagey spectacle, with 
an applauding audience looking on, but a dramatic 
moment in secret, when a man smashes up his moral 
hesitancies and indecision, and, laying a firm hand 
upon the neglected helm of his boat, shall say, '' Now ! 
henceforth for me to live is Christ ! '* " Choose you 
this day whom ye will serve ... As for me and 
my house, we will serve the Lord.'' 

But let me give a note of warning. Let every man 
be careful to distinguish between resolutions and 
resolution. We may make our resolutions, but want 
of resolution will make them ineffective. There is 
an old saying that the way to hell is paved with 
good resolutions. I suppose it is true, but they are 
good resolutions in which there has been no resolu- 
tion. We may make our resolutions, but we need 
a mystic force of resolution if they are to be efficient. 
And men are so prone to confound the one with 
the other, and their moral enterprises collapse in 
pathetic disaster. For let us ever remember, that 



WANTED, A VERDICT! MS 

even when the verdict has been given, and our reso- 
lutions have been made, the bias of our beings may 
be against our moral choice. Yes, that is the contro- 
versy which characterises thousands of lives when 
they first pull themselves together for moral decision. 
The combatants are resolutions versus inclinations, 
and in such warfare mere resolutions are apt to prove 
very frail. And so again I say, when we have made 
our resolutions we need spiritual resolution to make 
them powerful. " It is not by might, not by power, 
but by my spirit, saith the Lord.'' You may put 
your firm hand upon the rudder of your sailing boat ; 
but you are not going far without the wind. 
'' Breathe on me, breath of God ! '' " Ye shall re- 
ceive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you.'' 
'' And He breathed upon them," and the flapping 
sails tightened to receive it, and the boat moved out of 
harbour in its God-appointed way ! '' And He 
breathed upon them," and the frail resolution pulsed 
and tingled with resolution, and the timid recruit 
became a valorous knight, fit to take his place on the 
sternest part of the field ! 

"Breathe on me, Breath of God: 
Fin me with life anew, 
That I may love what Thou dost lore. 
And do what Thou would'st do. 

Breathe on me, Breath of God, 
Till I am wholly Thine, 
Until this earthly part of me 
Glows with Thy fire divine." 



XXII 
THE OLD ROAD AGAIN 

" Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing." — John xxi. 3. 

Do we feel that this is a mean and trifling descent 
from the great and solemn themes which are de- 
scribed in the previous chapter ? The disciples have 
been living in repeated thrills of wonder. And now, 
is it possible that they can quietly settle down again 
to the old tasks, and from the awful glory of the 
resurrection turn to the commonplace of fishing? 
Has the wonder faded ? Has the warm glow become 
grey and cold ? Have the colours of the marvellous 
sunrise changed into the quiet attire of the sober 
day ? Has the surprise spent itself ? " I go a fish- 
ing ! '' Is the glory over ? Oh, no ! The wonder 
of the resurrection, and the power of it, are now to 
mingle with the old conditions and transfigure them. 
When you begin to descend the Eigi, after witnessing 
the unutterable glory of some stupendous sunrise, you 
do not leave it all behind, you carry it with you, you 
bring it into the hurrying, sweltering movements of 
your own city, and it mixes itself with the grey and 
sombre circumstances of our common day. 

" These beauteous forms, 
Through a long absence, have not been to m§ 

244 



THE OLD ROAD AGAIN 245 

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them. 
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart: 
And passing even into my purer mind. 
With tranquil restoration." 

Simon Peter bad often gone a fishing, but never bad 
be gone as be went in tbe twiligbt of tbat most 
wonderful evening. He moved about tbe sbore witb 
an amazingly enlarged consciousness; tbe imprison- 
ing walls of bis narrow lot bad fallen down on every 
side, and on every side tbe ligbt was pouring in from 
tbe infinite. He bandied tbe ropes in a new style, 
and witb a new dignity born of tbe bigger capacity of 
his own soul. Yes, he turned to tbe familiar task, 
but witb a quite unfamiliar spirit. He went a fish- 
ing, but the power of tbe resurrection went with him. 
He spread the splendid colours of his Eastertide over 
tbe still grey surface of bis common life. 

Ifow, here is tbe true test of tbe reality of my 
spiritual experience : how does it fit me for ordinary 
affairs? A spiritual festival should do for the soul 
what a day on tbe bill does for tbe body, equip it 
for tbe better doing of tbe ordinary duties in tbe vale. 
I will test the essential value of any man's Easter by 
his behaviour in the following week. I will test the 
value of a Christian convention by the way in which 
its supporters pick up tbe lowly duties that wait on 
the undecorated road. When the special revival is 
over, and tbe exciting meetings are done, and tbe 



246 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

sensational day wears toward evening, how do they 
return to the ordinary way, to the customary labours, 
to quiet domestic duties, to ugly social necessities, 
to the unapplauded round of church services, to the 
little prayer meeting with the two and three — ^how 
do they return to these things ? Do they come back 
with that glorified consciousness which makes them 
^' faithful in that which is least," or do they come 
back feeling that all these things are flat and taste- 
less, stale and profitless, and that they must seek a 
diet more highly spiced and exceptional ? I remem- 
ber once standing on Great Orme's Head, on a day 
of superlative beauty, a day when land and ocean 
and sky seemed to vie with one another in the 
amazing glory of their robes ; and one who was near 
me turned and sighingly said, '' Fancy auctioneering 
after this ! '' Yes, and fancy fishing after the resur- 
rection! If, after the Easter morn, the old beach 
seems a cold and colourless strip, and our old fisher- 
men mates are dull and flavourless, and the old fish- 
ing boat stinks in our nostrils, and we turn to the 
work with loitering feet, we may be perfectly sure 
that we have never gazed upon the real glory of the 
risen Lord, for it is the inherent ministry of the 
spiritually extraordinary to make the ordinary at- 
tractive. '' Even the bells upon the horses shall be 
holy unto the Lord/' " After these things . . . 
Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing." 

Here, then, I say, is an unerring test of the reality 
of a spiritual experience, it gives us a^keener aj tpctite 



THE OLD ROAD AGAIN 247 

for common duty. It is beautiful to watch the 
Psalmists, and to listen to them when they return 
from communing with the Lord. For this is the 
song upon their lips, " O, how I love Thy law! " It 
is an extraordinary combination, affection gathering 
round about a statute, a glowing passion gathering 
round about a restraint. The Psalmist had not al- 
ways delighted in the law of his Lord. There was 
a day when he accepted it like bitter medicine, and 
he took it with a very wry face, but now he has been 
spiritually exalted, his moral palate has been re- 
newed, and the law of the Lord is in his mouth " as 
honey for sweetness.'' When a man smacks his lips 
over duty, and not over an evasion of duty, you may 
securely reason as to the depth and reality of his 
communion with God. " Thy statutes have become 
my songs." This is the test — how do our resurrec- 
tion experiences certify themselves in common life? 
Does the power of the resurrection pervade our ordi - 
na ry toil j Does d rudgery rise from the d gadj and 
appea r a creature w ith wings ? Is there a new at- 
mosphere in our business, the nimble, living air of 
the Easter morn? Do men findTt easier to breathe, 
a joy to breathe, when they come into our communion, 
even though our intercourse be concerned with com- 
parative trifles? Is there a fine tonic in the air, 
and do men go away from our presence saying, '^ It 
was l ike^aj^eat h from the hil ls " ? That is a proof 
of the resurrection. And do all our cold conven- 
tionalities become alive, and warm, and brilliant, like 



248 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

dull carbons when the mystic electrical energy pos- 
sesses and pervades them ? Is there a finer grace in 
the courtesies on the beach because of what happened 
" on the first day of the week '' upon the hill ? These 
are the tests, and by these we may know how intimate 
or how remote has been our fellowship with the 
risen Lord. '' The Lord is risen indeed ! " Is He ? 
'' We have seen the Lord ! ^' Have you ? '' He hath 
appeared unto Simon ! '' Has He ? Then there will 
be evidence down on the beach, and we shall see the 
glory of the Eastertide in the kindling of lowly 
duties, and in the illumination of the common road. 
'' Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing ! '' 

But, now, this healthy action of Simon Peter is 
not only a test and a proof of a past spiritual experi- 
ence, it is a pr eparative to a renewal of it. Pet^r 
might have laidaside his^^fdmary fisher's coat, and, 
if he possessed any, he might have arrayed himself 
in his holiday attire, and gone moving about in a 
sort of spiritual loitering, looking wistfully for the 
reappearance of his risen Lord. He might have 
been tempted to reason in this way, " It will be risky 
to go off on the boat, for while I'm away on the sea 
the Master may come ! I had just better ' watch and 
pray,' and risk the livelihood for a day or two ! " 
'' The Lord is mindful of His own ! He remembers 
His children! " But no! He girt his fisher's coat 
about him, got into his workaday dress, and thus he 
reasoned with himself: ^' It cannot be wrong, even 
after all the bewildering experiences of the last few 



THE OLD ROAD AGAIN 249 

days, and with all the remorse which troubles my 
days and nights, it cannot be wrong to set about 
earning one's living in an honest way ! If the Mas- 
ter comes He will know I'm about my needful work, 
and mayhap He will call it His Father's business ! 
I go a fishing ! " Ay, and that road of common \ 
duty was just the way appointed for another meeting I 
with his Lord, for in the morning light there came ay 
voice across the waters, '' Children, have ye any 
meat ? " '' And that disciple whom Jesus loved saith 
unto Peter, It is the Lord ! " 

And so Easter was repeated to men who were faith- 
fully treading the path of duty, and who were going 
about their ordinary work. The Lord appeared 
again, and their Easter faith was confirmed. Now 
I think that just here is where so many of us fail. 
Our spiritual experiences fade away, like '' insub- 
stantial pageants," because we are negligent of some 
appointed road of work and duty. There is a bit of 
grey service waiting, a colourless patch of uninterest- 
ing routine, a dull stretch of dingy street, and at the 
end of it the risen Lord! But people prefer to hug 
their past experiences, to pore over them, to meditate 
by the empt y tomb , and thereby seek some further 
revelation which will allay thejast uncertainty and , 
kill the lingering doubt._^_ And they wait, and wait^i 
and wait — and the colours of the first revelation be- 
gin to grow faint, and doubts annoy, and fears in- 
crease, and they begin to wonder if they have ever y 
seen the Lord at all. And all the time their boat is 




250 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 

stranded idly on the beach — and, did they only know 

it, in the call of a neglected task they may hear the 

voice of the risen Lord. I am growingly amazed at 

/the number of people who are depressed and troubled 

\with spiritual doubts and fears, and who, when one 

comes to enquire, are neglecting some immediate 

i means of obtaining light and witness from the living 

God. There are people in every congregation who 

are groping in a deepening twilight, and who are 

painfully moaning, 

" Where is the blessedness I knew 
When first I saw the Lord ? " 

. and if they would only gird themselves with their 

fisher's coat, and jump into the first duty that pre- 

/ sents itself, and row strong, and work hard, they 

I would see their Lord again, and in the morning they 

\ would hear His gracious voice across the waters, and 

\their heart would leap for joy. We are never going 

/to retain the Easter light if we are surrounded by 

y neglected tasks and duties. Here, at any rate, honest 

fishing will sustain the wonder of the empty tomb. 

/Lazy disciples will inevitably lose their Lord. He is 

Waiting for thee at the end of " the long unlovely 

street,'' or on the quiet beach where the morning 

boat comes in, or in the hospital ward, or in the 

humble cottage where pain and death have been — 

somewhere, I tell thee, at the further side of some 

neglected duty, the Master tarries for thee: then be 

^' up and doing," and " the joy of the Lord shall be 



THE OLD ROAD AGAIN 251 

thy strength." " I have waited for Thee in the way 
of Thy commandments." 

And may I not also say that this glorious discharge 
of immediate duty is surely the best way of pro- 
claiming the realities of Easter and the glory of the 
risen Lord. The world will believe in the secret 
of our Easter when our humblest duties and rela- 
tionships burn and shine with the light divine. 
There is nothing which so startles the world like a 
dull commonplace made alive and brilliant. Trans- 
formed rubbish heaps are centres of perennial fasci- 
nation. To see a bit of work, once carelessly and 
indifferently done^ now so done that it makes folk 
think of the kind of work which must have been 
turned out from the carpenter's shop at Nazareth! 
To see a once rough formality converted into a fin- 
ished courtesy by the grace and geniality of Jesus! 
To see the light of the risen life lighting up our 
trifles, and distinguishing them like street lamps 
along a dark, dingy road — all this, I say, would 
startle the old world into reverent and fruitful 
wonder. 

^' Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. 
They say unto him, We also go with thee." The 
example proved contagious. Sanctified common 
sense is very mighty. They were a little company 
of bewildered men, whose minds had been stretched 
to the reception of amazing experiences, and they 
were just palpitating in uncertainty and confusion. 
And then one sane man strikes across the confusion 



262 THE TRANSFIGURED CHURCH 



with this definite purpose, ^^ I go a fishing/' and the 
distracted minds collected themselves around this 
common end. " We also go with thee! '^ It was a 
fine lead, with a splendid issue. Let us strike that 
note, and amid all the mental disturbance and the 
theological reconstruction of our time let us keep 
our wills dead set to the doing of the immediate 
duty, and in the glorification of common life we shall 
never lose touch with the risen Lord. '' Well done, 
thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faith- 
ful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
many things, enter thou,'' it is an ever-breaking rev- 
elation, glory upon glory, " into the joy of thy 
Lord!'' 



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